The Course Of The Development On Vocational And Technical Education In Britain And Reference To China

Abstract

This study aims to promote the development of vocational education in our country energetically. The analysis is followed by introducing the course of development on vocational and technical education in Britain and summarizing the successful experience of vocation in our country with strengthening the funding and legislation for the state of vocational education as well as putting forward suggestions for reform and innovation of education to improve the system of certificates. Keywords—vocational and technical education in Britain; sandwich; the three rail system; the standard of qualification for vocational; reference Vocational and technical education was carried out in Britain which was the earliest country in the world. An increasing number of efforts with utilized vocational education from middle school to higher education in various fields got involved in enhancing the social status between vocational education and general education, the eradication of the obstacle, referencing the many experience and enlightenment to our vocational education with the beginning of the development. I. THE EVOLUTION COURSE OF VOCATIONAL AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION IN BRITAIN A. The Initial Stage of Vocational and Technical Education: At the End of the 17th Century to the Late 19th Century. The vocational education began to develop from the late 17th century to the end of the 19th century, which was constituted with two stages. The overall development was relatively backward, especially secondary vocational education, which was not suitable to the strengthen and the level of industrialization[1]. 1) The Twists and Turns of Secondary Vocational and Technical Education: From the End of 17th Century to the Middle of the 18th Century The modern vocational and technical education was originated in the late 17th century in Britain, mainly including two types of institutions for vocational education. One was a class derived from a charity school ran by the church, the other was the mechanic workshops which was generally built up by celebrities and workers, introducing simple and modern skills of production technology to workers. 2) The Difficultly Standard of Higher Vocational and Technical Education: In the Late of 19th Century The vocational education was taken seriously by the British government, who successively established a special committee of science education and the Royal Technical Education Committee, which provided policy and consultation. And the law of vocational education was promulgated, allowing the local governments to withdraw money from tax items for supporting the vocational education[2]. B. The System of Initial Stage for Vocational Education :From The Beginning of 20th Century to The End of World War II At the end of 19th century, the Britain became weaker than the United States and Germany. The Britain was strongly stimulated by the intensive competition in political, military, economy and science of every country with the two world wars. The Britain government was forced to give up the attitude with laissez-faire for the vocational education. They began to intervene directly, sped up the legislation of vocational education and built system of modern vocational education actively. 1) The Formation of System on Vocational Education: At the Beginning of 20th Century The Balfour Education Law, Regulations for secondary schools and Regulations for technical schools were published in 1902, 1904 and 1905 respectively, preliminary laid the status of vocational education in the system[3]. 2nd International Conference on Social Science and Higher Education (ICSSHE 2016) © 2016. The authors Published by Atlantis Press 91 2) The Change of Secondary Vocational Education: Before and After the World War II, at 1926 and 1938. The Hadow report and the Spence report were submitted by the British Board of Education consulting, which suggested that the government should build up the main system of secondary school as grammar schools, secondary modern schools and high school of science and technology, bringing the vocational education into the system of the secondary vocational education. 3) The Smooth Development of Higher Vocational and Technical Education: At the Beginning of 20th Century to the End of World War II. In the meantime, the British vocational education had also gained development. A group of technical college merged, upgraded, and even established the University of Science for higher vocational education. Some technical colleges engaged in higher vocational education which were gradually accepted by the society and government and gained the legal status of institutions of higher vocational education. At last they actively promoted the system of national qualification certificate, which strongly improved the development of higher vocational and technical education. C. The Institution Stage of Vocational Education: Since After World War II. 1) The Transient Rise of Medium Vocational Education: from the late 1940s to 1950s[4]. The British published the Bulter law that highly agreed with the grammar schools, secondary modern schools and technical schools for the main system of the secondary school by the law, which marked that the technology high school was officially incorporated into the public education system. 2) The Gradually Expansion of Higher Vocational Education: In the 1950s to 1960s. A white paper on technology education was published by the British government in 1956, which stressed the report of the importance of higher and secondary vocational education. It contributed to the adjustment of the structure in the institute of technology, which formed the four kinds of institutions in higher vocational education, including the local college, faculty of regional, regional college and advanced Technology College. It also made it clear about the orientation of running a school, all kinds of technical college oriented service, and the disorders of the forms and the course in those colleges. However, the relevant proposals in secondary vocational education weren’t paid attention to. 3) The Improvement and Reformation of the Apprenticeship: from the 1960s to 1990s Due to the long-term backwardness of secondary vocational education in Britain, the intermediate technical training of talents was mainly relied on the traditional apprenticeship, with the intervention of the government and voluntarily signed contracts by employers and apprentices. The industrial training was published in Britain, in 1964, regulating that the industry must take training with the legal obligation, in order to overcome the limitations of apprenticeship. II. THE REFERENCE OF THE SUCCESSFUL EXPERIENCE ON VOCATIONAL AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION IN BRITAIN TO OUR COUNTRY A. The Dominant of State Is The Foundation for The Development of Vocational and Technical Education 1) The Value and Regulations on the Legislation of the State In terms of the present state in China, not only should the whole of vocational and technical education be regulated, but also the hours and the employees whether to accept the corresponding vocational education must be specified. At the same time, the standards for varieties institutions in vocational and technical education with the approach of teachers and practice must be standardized. 2) The Financial Support Provided by the State Vocational and technical education is different from other forms of general education. The requirements are higher for the teaching space than the classroom for theory learning, including simple books, desks and blackboards. Therefore, the support funds for the vocational and technical education are more than the general education. At the beginning, the British rules were firstly intervened of providing the funds to vocational and technical education. B. The Reform and Innovation of The Vocational College is The Basis for Development of Vocational and Technical Education A competency based teaching mode of knowledge oriented teaching method should be developed to reform and innovate on vocational colleges in our country. Meanwhile, in the teaching practice, the subject states of students should be highlighted as the leader of learning process by teachers, creating a good learning environment for students, helping them learn more knowledge and paying more attention to convert knowledge into ability, with enough preparation for students in society in the future. C. To Reform The System of Qualifications and Professional Certificate Parallel Build System of National Professional Standards System Vocational qualification certificate of organization and management institutions mainly include department for education and skills, qualifications and curriculum, authority, industry guidance mechanism institutions and the identification of seven departments. We can imitate the successful experience of vocational education in Britain, strengthening government intervention in the standard system of vocational qualification, paying more attention to attach the market, making enterprises to participate in the cooperation, reforming the traditional examination system for vocational qualification certificate[5] and making none distinguish with the certificate for general education and vocational education, attaching great importance to the quality of certificates[6].