Higher Vocational Education-Theoretical Basis for Defining the Concept of Higher Vocational Education When it comes to the classification structure of social talents, we always think of pyramid, portal and trapezoidal structural models. However, at present, the internationally recognized theory of talent structure and classification is the "occupational spectrum" theory widely used in western countries. Taking the industrial occupation field as an example, this theory describes the knowledge and skill structure of various industrial and technical talents with a continuous occupation belt. As shown in the following figure, industrial technicians are divided into three series, namely, craftsmen or skilled workers, engineers and technicians, which are called C series, E series and T series respectively. In the picture, A and B are skilled workers (C series talents), C and D are engineers, E series and T series. In the figure, A and B are skilled workers (C series talents), C and D are engineers (E series talents), and E and F are technicians (T series talents). The XY above the diagonal represents the proportion of manual operation and mechanical operation skills, and the lower represents the proportion of scientific theory and engineering technology theory knowledge. This shows that the requirements for skilled workers are mainly operational skills, the requirements for engineers are mainly theoretical knowledge, and there are certain requirements for technicians. Internationally, the education system for training these different series of talents is generally divided into three types: engineering education for training engineers, vocational education for training skilled workers, technical education for training technicians and technical education for training technicians. The latter two categories are collectively called "technical and vocational education" and belong to the broad category of "vocational education".

The theory of "occupational belt" can not only explain the status and characteristics of three series of talents: skilled workers (C), technicians (T) and engineers (E), but also explain the evolution of social talent structure with the progress of science and technology and the development of production technology and its relationship with education. In the handicraft production stage, the whole vocational belt has a single type of talents; In the early stage of large-scale industry, skilled workers and engineers appeared in the occupational belt, and they crossed at the junction of the occupational belt. In the first half of the 20th century, engineers had to improve their theoretical knowledge in order to meet the needs of scientific and technological development, so they moved greatly to the right in the occupational belt, and the intersection with skilled workers disappeared (only slightly moved to the right) and opened up. The resulting gap needs to be filled by new talents, so there is a "middleman talent" for technicians. In the second half of the 20th century, due to the rapid development of high technology and the continuous development of production technology system, the area of engineers moved to the right, and the area of technicians further expanded and differentiated at different levels, thus giving birth to a new type of senior professional and technical personnel, that is, senior technicians (or technicians, technicians, technical engineers, etc. Its name varies from country to country, but it is essentially the same). Because it originally belongs to the category of T-series talents, but it overlaps with E-series talents, some people call it TE-series talents.

For education, the multi-level of technicians also reflects the differentiation of training objectives. As a senior technician of TE series talents, he must have a high theoretical level, so his educational content has entered the field of higher education. Therefore, since the 1960s, higher education in various countries has divided into educational systems to train such talents, such as the educational system in the United States that recruits two-year college graduates (technicians) and trains "technicians" (1967). There are also short-term technical colleges that train "senior technicians" in France (1966), multidisciplinary technical colleges that train "technical engineers" in Britain (1969), specialized universities that train "applied engineers" in Germany (1970), and vocational colleges (1969) This new education system is what we call "higher vocational education" (essentially higher "technical education"), and the area shown by the arrow in the above figure is its corresponding training goal. The emergence of higher vocational education conforms to the development trend of higher vocational education worldwide. With the rapid development of high-tech industry today, the result of higher vocational education is bound to be the further expansion of higher vocational education in quantity and level. For example, there are masters (1979) to doctors (1986) in the "technical education" of training industry in Taiwan Province province of China. Whether this high-level postgraduate higher vocational education is the same as ordinary higher education or still has its own series remains to be discussed.

Of course, in a strict sense, it is not accurate enough to describe the complex and multidimensional social talent structure with a simplified and flat professional belt that only takes industrial and technical talents as an example, but it is a relatively complete theoretical model that can be recognized in a large range so far, especially because it can reflect the relationship between talent structure and educational structure, which is very helpful for us to further reveal the core connotation of higher vocational education. For other types of talent structure, although it may not be very accurate one-to-one correspondence with industrial categories, it can still be considered as similar in general. For example, in the medical and health system, in addition to doctors with similar "engineering education" (medical higher education) (equivalent to E-series talents) and ordinary care personnel with narrow "vocational education" (equivalent to C-series talents), a large number of nurses with "technical education" (medical and health secondary education) are needed as "intermediate talents". The senior talents in this series-nurses (senior nurses) can only be cultivated through higher "technical education". As a matter of fact, in recent years, there have been many nursing majors in some medical colleges and universities in China, and the nature of higher vocational education is self-evident.

It must be emphasized here that the core connotation of higher vocational education revealed by us should have a unique corresponding relationship in the talent structure area, that is, its training goal must belong to a series of talent categories and be at a certain level in this series. We can't imagine that higher vocational education can ignore the continuity of vocational areas and correspond to two discontinuous areas, such as the senior technician area (T series) and the senior skilled worker area (C series). Even if higher vocational education and the higher education level of skilled workers need more theoretical knowledge education, the "vocational education" for training high-skilled workers can only be called advanced vocational training or non-academic higher vocational education (which can be located in the new version of ISCED4B), and should not be classified as academic education of higher vocational education (ISCED5B). Here, although "advanced" and "advanced" are synonymous in semantics, their differences in the field of education are very obvious, just as "senior middle school education" undoubtedly belongs to the high level of secondary (secondary) education, and it must not be classified as higher (tertiary) education because of its "advanced" word.

However, we say that the cultivation of C-series talents does not belong to the category of higher vocational education, which does not mean that skilled workers will not accept higher vocational education. In fact, because of the high correlation between "technical education" and "vocational education (narrow sense)", they can communicate and contact each other. In this regard, Germany's approach can be used for reference. It can be said that "technical education" in Germany is implemented on the basis of "vocational education". For example, they stipulate that only those who have received "dual system" mechanic training ("vocational education" academic system) and are in vocational education. Because according to the German concept, to be a good technician, we must first be a skilled worker with considerable professional practical experience. As for Germany's specialized colleges (Fachhochschule, higher "technical education" academic system, whose academic level can be comparable to that of ordinary countries), the admission conditions are more distinctive-at present, their students are mainly composed of two parts: one is the graduates of vocational education who have been trained by "dual system", but they must first enter a specialized high school (Fachhochschule, incomplete high school system according to career direction, 6544). Second, the graduates of liberal arts middle schools (Gymnasium, complete high school system, 65,438+03 general education level) can go directly to ordinary universities (Universitaet, general higher education system, education level is equivalent to graduate students), but if they want to enter junior college, they must first make up a period of professional practical experience in the corresponding enterprises as "Vorpraxis" (the specific time and requirements depend on the needs of different majors. In this way, "vocational education" and "technical education" (including higher "technical education") are connected at different levels, and this experience is particularly worthy of our attention in developing higher vocational education and establishing a perfect vocational education system.