The enablers and barriers of providing professional practical skills education to rural elementary school students in Zhejiang, China

Abstract

Professional technical skills and professional practical skills are two kinds of education that are often written about and discussed in terms of technical knowledge and life skills respectively. Professional technical skills (technical skills) can be defined as mastery of specific subjects (such as mathematics or language) as well as the most basic cognitive skills required to obtain and retain the subject matter, while professional practical skills (practical skills) are the abilities professionals will need to put technical skills into practice in different life situations. Recognizing the interdependent relationship between these two skills, the researcher concluded that the acquisition of technical skills and practical skills is the outcome of education. What's more, a market economy requires a combination of both skills for the development of its individuals and of the nation as a whole. However, in China, a developing country that is transforming from a centrally planned economy to a market economy, rural students are not provided the opportunity to learn practical skills under the traditional exam-oriented educational system which does not include practical skills-based pedagogy. With a rural population of around 840 million people, China is perhaps the richest nation in the world in terms of the quantity of rural human resources. However, in terms of the quality of rural human resources, China is perhaps one of the poorest countries because most rural students in China are classified as high score and low ability or low score and low ability. The difference between these two categories is students' performance on exams that are designed to evaluate only the mastery of technical skills. Regardless of their exam scores, rural students in both these categories lack practical skills because the educational infrastructure required to teach practical skills does not exist. This dissertation argues that building this infrastructure in rural China is essential in order to provide both kinds of skills and improve the quality of its rural human resources. The purpose of this study is to investigate the feasibility of providing practical skills and technical skills education to rural elementary school students under the exam-oriented education philosophy, and then to make recommendation regarding the design for appropriate educational programs. The researcher used a descriptive design, including both qualitative and quantitative research methods, to investigate the factors that would influence providing both technical and practical skills education to rural elementary school students in