Research On The Functions Of Industry Associations Participating In Vocational Education

With the development and deepening of vocational education, co-operative education has expanded its breadth and depth. However, more and more contradictions has emerged, such as the influence of the marketing of vocational education, the dispute between administrative controlling and vocational schools'independent running, the government arranging and the market adjustment, school education and market demand, and so on. All of these contradictions lie coordinating the relationship among government, business enterprises and vocational schools. By drawing on international experience, we discover that the involvement of industry association can help to stabilize and reinforce the "Government-Business-Vocational schools" triangular model. Industry association working as bridge among government, business enterprises and vocational schools plays an important functional role in the vocational education system. The functions in vocational education system include the following five aspects: First, participating in management and decision making and second, participation and organization of vocational education and training, the three is involved in quality control and evaluation of vocational education, four is to promote continuing professional education system, the five is to promote professional knowledge and technology transfer. Industry association dedicated to serving the industry, businesses and practitioners, to promote the vocational education management and supervision, to reduce the burden of government education sector, to train qualifications technology applications talent for the industry corporate. However, the industry association in order to perform its functions effectively, it requires a good social environment, stable government support, and optimization of the industry association itself. In general, vocational education as a culture of human activities need to establish a long-term, comprehensive and effective structural system, so in the course of the introduction of industry associations in vocational education, vocational schools should strike a balance between institutional and industrial, educational standards and market rules, education equity and social differentiation on the basis of thorough analyzing the substance of the process, to meet the immediate economic benefits of industries and enterprises and ultimately achieve the long-term economic, social and human development.