Employment-oriented proposal is of great guiding significance to the development of higher vocational education. However, some higher vocational colleges have a blind expansion tendency of employment-oriented in school-running practice, which leads to the prominent social function of education and the weakening of its ontological function. Through the concrete analysis of the current weakening of the ontological function of higher vocational education, this paper puts forward some suggestions on reconstructing the ontological function of higher vocational education.
1 Manifestations and reasons of the weakening of the noumenon function of higher vocational education
At present, the orientation of higher vocational education in China is "employment-oriented", and the establishment of this orientation has important guiding significance. However, due to the misunderstanding of the connotation of employment orientation in some higher vocational colleges, in the specific school-running practice, the social function of education is prominent and the ontological function is weakened, which is embodied in the following aspects:
1. 1 Deviation in understanding the connotation of "employment-oriented"
The orientation of "employment-oriented" in higher vocational education is mainly to adjust the development direction of higher vocational education, enhance its service function for regional economic development, solve the shortage of high-quality skilled talents, and at the same time make higher vocational colleges clear their own orientation in the process of popularization of higher education, reflect the difference from the "discipline-oriented" talent training mode of ordinary undergraduate education, and realize the optimization of the overall structure of higher education in China.
However, in the practice of running many higher vocational colleges, there is a tendency to blindly expand employment orientation, that is, to overemphasize the "professionalism" of higher vocational education types and ignore the "advanced nature" of its running level. On the one hand, it is reflected in the over-emphasis on skill training and the neglect of professional theoretical knowledge, which leads to the decline of students' actual ability and lack of knowledge. On the other hand, the blindness of skill training fails to highlight the important position of core skills. We must realize that employment orientation is not the patent of higher vocational education, and any type of higher education should attach importance to employment. The only difference is that the levels or types of employment orientation of talents trained by different types of higher education are different. It is hard to imagine that in modern society, students trained by any type of higher education can achieve independent survival and real socialization without employment. In modern society, the social function of any higher education should be realized through the socialization of the educated. If the educated can't become the talents needed by social and economic development, that is, the real socialization of the educated individual can't be realized, then the social function of higher education can't be realized.
In the development of higher vocational education, there have been different standards such as knowledge-based, ability-based, personality-based and quality-based. At present, the ability-based view is more popular. From the relationship between knowledge and ability, knowledge is the basis of forming ability, ability is the goal of knowledge learning, and ability training is the commonness pursued by vocational education and general education, not the difference. The so-called "competency-based" in the practice of running some higher vocational colleges is essentially a skill-based, that is, the understanding of the concept of "competency" is misplaced, and the understanding of "competency" is limited to the category of post skills, while the "competency" in pedagogy internally includes cognitive abilities such as observation, memory, thinking, imagination, skill operation ability, social ability and problem-solving ability.
In addition, "competency-based" vocational education is put forward in view of the disadvantages of "knowledge-based" vocational education, which has played a certain role in promoting the reform and development of vocational education. However, ability and knowledge are only intellectual factors, and non-intellectual factors that affect individual development, such as emotion, will, professional ethics, professional personality, professional personality and cooperative spirit, cannot be fully reflected in the concept of competency-based.
1.3 Extreme utilitarian value orientation
At present, some higher vocational colleges advocate "order-based training" and "zero-distance docking of posts", which exaggerates the utilitarian value orientation of higher vocational education and "sells" students as a materialized "educational product", while "sales volume" becomes an important standard to measure the quality of higher vocational education, that is, "promoting employment" is the only value orientation, ignoring the autonomy and selectivity of students as the main body. The training mode of "order-based training" and "zero-distance docking of posts" is mainly aimed at labor-intensive posts in the process of socialized mass production, so it is more suitable for secondary vocational education with low-level skilled talents as the training goal and short-term social training with simple and skilled operators as the training goal. The training goal of higher vocational education is to meet the needs of knowledge economy and scientific and technological development. This kind of talents should not only have strong technical application ability, but also have certain professional theoretical knowledge base, organization and management ability, problem-solving ability and interpersonal coordination and communication ability. Such talents are generally engaged in front-line work in technical application positions such as production, construction, management and service. This kind of post has the characteristics of higher technical content and quality requirements than simple skilled operators, that is, it has the initial technology-intensive characteristics, rather than labor-intensive characteristics.
1.4 overemphasizes the short-term effect of the development of higher vocational education, lacks long-term development planning, and logically falls into the contradiction between pursuing the goal and reality, that is, excessively pursuing the "employment" goal cannot really solve the long-term employment problem.
At present, many higher vocational colleges regard "employment rate" as an important indicator to measure the quality of running a school. Although this practice is reasonable, some higher vocational colleges only pay attention to the employment rate once, pay attention to strengthening the adaptability of students' professional posts, ignore the students' professional sustainable development ability, and have short-sighted positioning of talent training mode. For example, the adaptability of the professional post group is reduced, the level of the adapted post group is reduced, and the technical content in the process of skill training is reduced, which leads to the continuous decline of professional knowledge and ability of higher vocational students, thus leading to the situation that higher vocational graduates compete with secondary vocational graduates and even short-term trainers for positions. The fundamental reason for this phenomenon is that some higher vocational colleges can't reasonably locate higher vocational education, overemphasize the professionalism of higher vocational education and lack understanding of its advanced nature. With the acceleration of knowledge updating and technology upgrading, new knowledge and technology have spawned new technical posts, and the elimination cycle of the original posts has been shortened, which will inevitably lead to the frequent shortage of new high-quality skilled talents. Higher vocational graduates who lack the ability of career sustainable development are bound to face more severe employment competition pressure and even the threat of being eliminated, thus making the employment contradiction more prominent. "
1.5 Marginalization of humanistic quality education
Some higher vocational colleges pay too much attention to the employment problem, which makes technology in the absolute dominant position in the education process, and humanistic quality education and humanistic spirit cultivation are increasingly marginalized in higher vocational colleges. The status of public basic courses and humanistic quality elective courses is low, and the cultivation of students' professional ethics, will, emotion, personality and personality is not fully valued. Specifically, the number of humanities quality education courses is decreasing, teachers' enthusiasm for starting courses is not high, and the number and quality of teachers are far from meeting the needs of starting such courses. In addition, the construction of campus culture in higher vocational colleges lacks reasonable orientation and long-term planning, and there are double defects of classical university concept and modern university concept. Students' activities have a single theme, low cultural taste and level, and even become a mere formality, which cannot be organically combined with teaching activities and personnel training process. The fundamental reason for this phenomenon lies in the neglect of the personal value of the educated by the educational purpose and the narrow understanding of human nature as the basis of the existence of personal value. We know that human nature should include natural, social and spiritual attributes. In the understanding of human nature, the extremely rich human nature is limited to the utilitarian category, and the social attribute of human beings is overemphasized, while the natural attribute, especially the spiritual attribute, of human beings is neglected. The development of human nature we are pursuing is not a single dimension of human nature, but a harmonious, rich and complete improvement of the overall development level of human nature. The real liberation and all-round development of man envisioned by Marx inherently contains the development and perfection of man's spiritual world, not just mastering production skills and improving labor ability. A person's overall possession of his own essence depends not only on the basic conditions provided by social development, but also on his own recognition of the level of development and his choice of dimensions.
2. Suggestions on reconstructing the ontological function of higher vocational education
Education is a social practice of human reproduction. The ontological function of education is to cultivate, develop and perfect people, and in the process of socialization, it also makes people constantly personalized. The educational process is a process of value pursuit and value realization characterized by improving people's value. Higher vocational education should pay attention to people's value and strengthen its own ontological function.
2. 1 Vocational training should attach importance to the education of humanistic spirit.
Education should not only promote people's socialization, but also promote people's individuality. For example, the book "Learning to Live-Today and Tomorrow in the Education World" points out that "the future task of teachers is to cultivate a person's personality and open the way for him to enter the real world". At the same time, it is also pointed out that "it is the basic purpose of contemporary education to cultivate people's self-survival ability and promote the all-round development of people's personality." Teachers should respect the value and significance of students' individual existence and have a tolerant spirit. Its essence is to hold a fair and understanding attitude towards foreign thoughts and beliefs, allowing students to act freely and think independently without interference from others.
In short, education should respect students' differences, uniqueness, autonomy and creativity, guide students according to their interests, talents, qualifications, specialties and hobbies, and promote the harmonious and perfect development of individuals. That is, individuals do not take understanding and accepting social culture as their sole purpose, nor simply adapt to society, but meet social needs by cultivating talents with sound personality, independent personality, creativity and pioneering. Higher vocational education promotes students' individualization and is a natural place to practice its own ontological function. Therefore, higher vocational education should pay attention to humanistic care for students and realize the return of humanistic spirit under the background of technical education.
2.2. Improve the rational understanding of the goal of "employment" and coordinate the relationship between quantity and quality.
To realize the scientific and systematic evaluation standard of "employment", we should not simply limit our vision to the number of "employment", that is, the single level of employment rate, but pay attention to the number of employment and re-examine the quality of employment. Because the evaluation of employment quality involves quality and value orientation, and because different evaluation subjects have different views on quality, we might as well logically assume that the positioning of talent training program is reasonable, meets the requirements of economic development for senior skilled talents, and can be recognized by students. Then, the employment quality under this logical assumption can be evaluated by indicators such as professional counterparts, actual types and levels of employment posts, and positioning of personnel training objectives. The knowledge and ability structure of students meet the requirements of this post.
2.3. Overcome the short-sighted tendency of talent training programs and pay attention to the cultivation of students' sustainable development ability.
The cultivation of students' sustainable development ability is not only the inherent requirement of humanistic education view, but also put forward in view of the reality that the elimination period of senior skilled posts is shortened under the background of knowledge updating and technology upgrading. Therefore, the cultivation of higher vocational talents should pay attention to the cultivation of students' autonomous learning ability and information acquisition and processing ability. In the process of personnel training, while strengthening the training of professional core skills, we should pay attention to the study of professional theoretical knowledge, improve students' ability to understand and apply knowledge, cultivate students' ability to learn and transfer professional knowledge independently, understand the frontier of professional technology development, and enhance students' ability to acquire professional knowledge and technology independently.
2.4. Pay attention to the cultivation of professional ethics and professionalism, and let moral education enter the students' life world.
The type orientation of higher vocational education makes higher vocational colleges pay attention to the professionalism of talent training, especially the cultivation and strengthening of vocational skills, which is increasingly recognized in higher vocational colleges, but the cultivation of professional ethics and professionalism can not be fully concerned, which reflects the deviation of moral education in higher vocational colleges in a certain sense. At present, moral education is still limited to the traditional ideological and political education, overemphasizing the political function of moral education and ignoring the ontological function of moral education. Moral education is a systematic and comprehensive work. Although ideological and political education is an important part of it, as an individual student, the foundation of his life world often points to concrete and rich reality. Therefore, moral education should pay attention to the combination of theory and practice, and pay more attention to the cultivation of professional ethics and professionalism closely related to students' careers.
2.5 Enhance students' autonomy in career choice and improve students' participation in career design.
With the advancement of legalization and democratization in modern society, liberal democracy, as an idea and ideology, has become the value orientation of more and more young students. Therefore, enhancing students' autonomy in career choice and participation in career design will not only help to improve the quality of talent training in higher vocational colleges and reflect people-oriented, but also help to enhance students' social adaptability, enhance their sense of professional belonging and increase their contribution to their careers. Therefore, the flexible academic system, credit system reform and major and minor system in higher vocational colleges are undoubtedly a useful attempt and exploration, and related courses and lectures, psychological counseling and employment guidance aimed at improving students' career design ability are also of great significance. In addition, in the design of talent training scheme, we should fully consider the differences of students' cultural background, knowledge base and ability tendency, refine the professional direction and encourage modular teaching.