Major is the basic unit of vocational education talent training, the core of the teaching work of vocational colleges, and the main label of students' future social identity. Vocational education is to closely connect students' studies with the corresponding occupations and service industries through various majors. As far as the school's own construction is concerned, the quality is excellent only if the major is strongIn terms of serving economic and social development, adaptability can only be enhanced by a high degree of professional matchingIn terms of social acceptance, it is the professional prospects that enhance the attractiveness. Therefore, vocational education can only meet the requirements of "effectively improving the quality, adaptability and attractiveness of vocational education" by practicing "internal skills", doing a solid job in professional construction, and creating a "golden major" in the minds of students and enterprises. To achieve this, vocational schools need to focus on balancing the four pairs.
First, we should pay attention to hot emerging industries, and we must pay more attention to the needs of regional development. In today's era, a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation is deepening, and the transformation of new and old kinetic energy is accelerating. China is comprehensively promoting the construction of a strong country with Chinese-style modernization, accelerating the development of advanced and applicable technologies, continuously enhancing core competitiveness, and accelerating the formation of new quality productivity, which will inevitably put forward newer and higher requirements for the training of technical and skilled talents. To this end, vocational colleges should put the improvement of the service support ability of the profession to the industry in the first place, give priority to the development of key majors required by the national strategy when conditions permit, actively build the shortage of majors required by the society and people's livelihood, and pay close attention to the popular majors with high market heat, strong demand and good reputation. At the same time, however, it is important to consider another important factor, namely the industrial development needs of the region. In practice, some schools ignore the local reality, copy the national strategic needs, copy the majors of similar schools in developed areas or set up their own majors in the market "Internet celebrity occupations", there may be problems such as mismatch between the major and the local industry, and the talents cultivated cannot be used, matched, and retained locally, resulting in the low recognition of vocational education in local departments and industry enterprises, and it is difficult to form a benign development ecology of vocational education. To solve this problem, it is necessary to strengthen overall planning at the regional level, establish a smooth and timely supply and demand communication mechanism, and truly achieve the deployment, planning and construction of vocational education and economic and social development.
Second, the old majors should be withdrawn and eliminated, and the traditional majors should be transformed and upgraded. At present, China is accelerating the promotion of new industrialization and vigorously improving the level of industrial modernization. A new generation of information technology such as artificial intelligence will empower new industrialization in an all-round and in-depth manner. At the same time, the labor market is and will continue to change dramatically, with many traditional jobs disappearing and new ones being created. Therefore, the professional settings of vocational colleges must be adjusted and updated in a timely manner, new majors for emerging industries and future industries must be added in a timely manner, and a number of old majors that are lagging behind, excessive, and inconsistent with the new development concept must be resolutely abolished. However, special attention should be paid to the treatment of traditional professions should not be "withdrawn". China's industrial policy clearly proposes to transform and upgrade traditional industries while cultivating and expanding emerging industries. Traditional industries are the foundation of China's modern industrial system, and cannot be simply eliminated as "low-end industries". Therefore, vocational education should start from the perspective of technological transformation and upgrading of the service industry, actively promote the transformation of traditional majors such as petrochemical, metallurgy, medicine, building materials, and light textiles, and provide support for the upgrading of traditional industries through the addition, deletion and update of relevant course content.
Third, we should pay attention to our own foundation, and we need to develop ideas and create conditions. For the school, professional construction is a top priority. Whether it is an adjustment or a new major, the faculty, curriculum, teaching materials, internship and training venues, facilities and equipment, local industrial base, policy and investment support need to be systematically considered. To this end, it is necessary to conduct repeated research and judgment and full demonstration, and we must not blindly open majors regardless of the conditions and foundations. On the other hand, however, it is also important to avoid overemphasizing that the conditions are not yet ripe and holding us back. In today's rapid technological upgrading, it is neither possible nor necessary to act until one's own strength is fully equipped. It is feasible to develop ideas, create conditions, and integrate talents and resources from the industrial side and the scientific and technological side to collaborate and innovate. At present, according to the requirements of the "Opinions on Deepening the Construction and Reform of the Modern Vocational Education System", the construction of "one body and two wings" in full swing across the country has created good conditions for this. Whether it is the city-wide industry-education consortium or the industry-education integration community, it emphasizes the coordinated efforts of multiple subjects of government, industry, enterprises, schools and societies, promotes the in-depth cooperation of industrial parks, leading enterprises, vocational schools, ordinary universities, industry organizations and scientific research institutions, and effectively promotes the integration of vocational education, industry and education, and science and education, so as to create a solid foundation for pooling resources to build majors, cooperate in tackling key problems, and collaborate in educating people.
Fourth, we should emphasize horizontal cross-integration, and more importantly, we should emphasize vertical integration. Today's world has entered the era of "organized scientific research", and there are fewer and fewer opportunities to promote social progress by relying on individual inventions and creations. The same is true in production practice. With the continuous improvement of the integration and intelligence level of facilities and equipment, front-line technical and skilled workers are no longer faced with an isolated problem of a single link on the production line, but often a systemic problem of "pulling a trigger and moving the whole body", which puts forward higher requirements for the compound ability and complex problem-solving ability of technical and skilled talents. Many vocational colleges pay more and more attention to the cross-integration of disciplines and majors in the professional setting, and have developed a large number of "digital +", "artificial intelligence +" and "green +" majors. At the same time, however, the establishment of majors should also give full consideration to the connection between the various levels of the longitudinal school. The "Catalogue of Vocational Education Majors (2021)" uniformly adopts the classification of major categories, professional categories and professional **, and the integrated design of different levels of secondary vocational, higher vocational college and higher vocational undergraduate majors has laid the foundation for the integration of design majors. For the same professional name, vocational colleges should establish professional objectives and contents that are not only connected with the upper and lower levels but also have their own emphasis according to the requirements of the professional catalog, according to the educational stage of the major, and form the corresponding curriculum and textbook system based on the integrated design idea, so as to avoid the low quality and low efficiency caused by duplication and crossing, and also avoid the excessive learning burden caused by the simple addition of subject content.
Wang Xinbo is the director of the Institute of Vocational Education and Continuing Education, Chinese Academy of Education Sciences