Higher vocational education is an important part of China's education. It is a type of higher education development and a high-level education in China's vocational education system. Covering higher vocational education, higher vocational undergraduate education and postgraduate vocational education (professional degree postgraduate education), it shoulders the mission of cultivating talents for economic and social construction and development.

The characteristics of higher vocational education mainly include the following points:

The fundamental task is to cultivate high-quality skilled professionals who can adapt to the front line of production, construction, management and service.

With social needs as the goal and job technical requirements as the main line, students' knowledge, ability, quality structure and training scheme are designed.

To build a curriculum and teaching content system with the cultivation of students' technical application ability as the core, basic theory teaching should be "necessary" and "sufficient", specialized courses should be targeted and practical, and practical teaching should account for a large proportion in the teaching plan.

Taking students' "double certificates" as the training goal and the construction of "double-qualified" teachers as the key.

The combination of production and learning and the combination of school and enterprise is the only way to cultivate high-quality skilled professionals.

With the development of globalization, the internationalization of vocational education has become an irreversible trend. Higher vocational education is also gradually advancing the process of internationalization, introducing advanced educational concepts, teaching methods and teaching resources through international exchanges and cooperation, and improving the quality of education and international competitiveness.

In addition, with the continuous progress of science and technology, higher vocational education will pay more attention to the application of technology. For example, online education, distance education, virtual laboratory and other technologies are widely used in the teaching process to provide students with more convenient and flexible learning methods.

At the same time, higher vocational education is also facing some challenges, such as how to improve teaching quality, how to strengthen practical teaching links, and how to adapt to changes in market demand. Therefore, higher vocational education needs constant reform and innovation to meet the needs of economic and social development.

In a word, higher vocational education is an important way to cultivate high-quality skilled talents, which is of great significance to promoting economic and social development and improving national competitiveness.