The Inspiration Of Training Gray Collar Talent In China From Japanese Specialized Schools

Striding into the new century, in the wave of informatization and digitalization, China is facing the revolutionary shock caused by industrial structure adjustment and the upgrade of industrial technology. On one side, there come some new professions with higher knowledge and higher technology because of the combination of traditional industry and digitalization. On the other side, knowledge economy produces the rising industry and creative industry featured as "high and new technology" and "cultural connotation" . With the gradual appearance of the new jobs, and the adjustment and transformation of the original jobs, there are many job occupations which require the employees to have not only theoretical and specialized knowledge, but also strong operating abilities. And it is difficult to define these employees with the traditional "white collar" or "blue collar" . People call these knowledgeable, creative technical talents "gray collar" .Meanwhile, according to the experts ' predict, China is becoming another global manufacturing center after Britain , the U.S. and Japan. To be the global manufacturing center, there must be a lot of "gray collar" talents. However, China is facing the situation of lack of these talents, especially higher skilled talents such as higher mechanics and technicians. Statistics show that in China the higher mechanics is 4% of the whole mechanics, which is discrepant from the ration of 40% of the developed countries. The "gray collar" talents, as a type of higher technical talents, appear and play more and more important role in current society. So it is imperative to build "gray collar" talents.In such case, the training of gray collar talents becomes the concerned issue of the education sector, (especially vocational education sector), business community and society at large. Nowadays, higher vocational education has been the platform of training higher "gray collar" . However, higher vocational education in China started relatively late, in the cultivation of "gray collar" talents, there are congenital or acquired deficiencies. Therefore, in the process of constructing higher vocational education system with Chinese characteristics, learning from the advanced experience of foreign countries is necessary.Abroad, the training of "gray collar" talents is completed by the country's higher vocational education and they have a unique pattern of personnel training and means, such as Germany's "dual system", the U.S. "cooperation in education" and so on. Founded in 1976 , the specialized schools are an important component of Japanese higher vocational education, which occupies an important position in the higher vocational education system, and is the main force of the training of "gray collar" talents. It has played a great role in promoting Japan's economic development.Specialized schools mainly recruit Japanese junior high school graduates or high school graduates, train people the necessary vocational and real-life abilities and improve people's level of general culture. In the Japanese Government's strong support, Japanese specialized schools set professions and curriculum, focus on practical teaching, and improve the quality of personnel training in accordance with the requirements of the local economic restructuring. In Japan, specialized schools sponsor the schools in a flexible manner and with excellent quality of personnel training, which has won praises and broad and strong support from various sectors, thus in a short period of time, they are developed by leaps and bounds, and have become one of the main institutions of higher education in Japan's national vocational training and all aspects of life-long education. Chinese "gray collar" talents training should learn from the successful experience of Japanese specialized school, and constantly enhance the country's national culture and vocational skills.This thesis regards the actual situation of China's Higher Vocational Education as the starting point, analyses the development status and characteristics of Japanese specialized schools, reasonably absorbs Japanese successful experience in this aspect, and proposes "gray collar" talents training mode, provides reflections and reference on Chinese developing training cause of "gray collar" talents.