Research on the Curriculum System of Finance Majors in Higher Vocational Colleges in the Context of University-Enterprise Cooperation ()
1. Introduction
In 2006, the Ministry of Education issued the document “Opinions on the Comprehensive Improvement of Teaching Quality of Higher Vocational Education”. It is clearly proposed that “the education mode of combining learning and work should be an important entry point for the reform of the talent training mode of higher vocational education, and higher vocational colleges should actively cooperate with industries and enterprises to jointly develop higher vocational courses” and “bring into play the role of industries, enterprises and professional teaching steering committees”.
In 2019, the State Council issued “the Implementation Plan for the National Vocational Education Reform”, proposing the core requirements “to improve the standards related to vocational education and teaching, to match professional settings with industrial demands, course contents with vocational standards, and teaching processes with production processes”. These requirements are to mobilize the enthusiasm of enterprises to participate in the whole process of university running, education and teaching, and to promote the further deepening of university-enterprise cooperation (Chen & Zhang, 2019).
At present, under the guidance of national policies, the enthusiasm of enterprises to participate in running universities has been greatly increased, and university-enterprise cooperation has been further deepened. After reviewing the existing studies in China and abroad, we found that there is limited information on the development and practice of university-enterprise cooperation courses in various majors of universities in the context of university-enterprise cooperation. However, within the limited data, we found that there are not many successful cases. The main reason for this is that the cooperation system is not perfect or merely a formality, and that it is difficult to develop in-depth cooperation. Because of the strong applicability and practicality of finance majors, it is particularly problematic for university-enterprise cooperation to be carried out in depth.
Xi Jinping, the general secretary of China, pointed out in the report of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China that “we should improve vocational education and training system and deepen the industry-education integration and university-enterprise cooperation” (The Central People’s Government of the People’s Republic of China, 2017). Today, as the state attaches more and more importance to higher vocational education, it has become an important way for higher vocational colleges to cultivate high quality and skilled talents by reinforcing university-enterprise cooperation. At present, most higher vocational colleges cultivate financial professionals in the form of university-enterprise cooperation. Compared with the original knowledge-based training method, this approach can more effectively cultivate skilled financial professionals.
2. Literature Review
It is not easy to search for academic research theories on curriculum development in vocational education, but it is possible to observe various curriculum development models at different stages of the development of vocational education in the West. For example, since the 1960s, the CBE curriculum development model adopted in the United States is based on social needs to cooperate with employers, with specific training objectives, highlighting the relevance of the curriculum (Yan & Zhai, 2015). The MES curriculum development model adopted in Sweden and the United Kingdom is to divide each occupation into several modules, each of which is a relatively independent component, emphasizing operations in strict accordance with work norms (Wu, 2019). The “Doubles system” curriculum model adopted in Germany is that students spend part of their time receiving vocational skills training in enterprises and part of their time receiving compulsory education with fundamental cultural knowledge and professional knowledge in vocational schools, thus realizing the close integration of practical skills and theoretical knowledge in enterprises and schools (Song, Sun, & Fang, 2016).
China’s traditional vocational education draws on the systematic three-stage curriculum model of regular education subjects, arranging the curriculum and teaching in the order of basic cultural courses—basic professional courses—professional courses (Ping, 2020). After the reform and opening up, China gradually introduced foreign vocational education curriculum model, changing the traditional knowledge-based curriculum to competence-based, and it began to focus on developing curriculum around vocational positions and cultivating the vocational competence (Cui, 2012).
3. Research Contents
3.1. Construction and Application of New Courses for Finance Majors
At present, finance education in higher education is facing two major problems. One of them is that the distance between the academic requirements of industry and enterprises for practitioners and higher vocational education is becoming more and more pronounced, and the graduates of finance majors from vocational colleges are facing a severe situation in employment. The other is that, the State Council has successively issued many documents such as “the Implementation Plan for the National Vocational Education Reform” (“Twenty Articles”). The internal construction of higher vocational education is subject to significant changes, and the finance majors in higher vocational education should try to explore a talent-training mode to meet the market demand as soon as possible.
The aim is to significantly raise the employment rate of finance students, so that after entering the workplace, students can better adapt to the work they do, and be equipped with the basic qualities and basic professional knowledge to improve their ability to work in the subsequent work. In this regard, the research group takes the problems in traditional finance teaching as a reference, and conducts in-depth cooperation with enterprises to introduce project cases and enterprise instructors in curriculum development, curriculum system design, curriculum structure optimization, as well as improvement of curriculum standards, curriculum objectives, curriculum content, curriculum resources and teaching methods. By presenting real application scenarios in the curriculum, it can connect with students’ employment positions and cultivate their vocational competence.
3.2. Enhancing the Capability of Vocational Colleges to Provide Financial Services to the Society
As the financial industry in China has been developing rapidly in recent years, the innovative financial system and the diversification of financial products have not only required the practitioners to update their knowledge, but also demanded the public to keep learning. In order to fully implement the requirements of the Party for higher vocational colleges, the university will give full play to the advantages of university talents and technology, and actively carry out the transformation of the achievements. The research group will not only cultivate knowledge and practical skills for students, but also explore ways to improve the access to financial knowledge for all members of society, so that the results of the project can better serve local economic and social development.
4. Research Methodology
4.1. Establishing a Teaching Team
Teachers from colleges and experts from enterprises should be the main subjects of lectures, focusing on the inclusion of enterprise instructors with rich engineering experience, changing the previous theory-based lectures and emphasizing the application of the latest job knowledge and skills from enterprises.
4.2. Organizing Teaching Materials and Teaching Contents
The teaching materials and teaching contents should be oriented to the job competence, the teaching modules should be formed according to the jobs, and the teaching objectives, the reference teaching hours and the teaching contents of each teaching module should be formulated according to the actual needs of the enterprise’s work field.
4.3. Changing Teaching Methods
The subject of teaching should be changed from teachers to students. Students can be divided into different groups to complete the project in the form of groups to emphasize the centrality of learners. The teaching process should be combined with the work process, so that the students’ mental process and action process can be integrated. The traditional classroom, training room and the real working environment of the enterprise should be combined in the teaching environment to incorporate “teaching, learning and doing” in the teaching environment.
4.4. Updating the Assessment Method
The previous assessment method should be changed, and the project process assessment, comprehensive assessment and theory assessment should be integrated together. Through the project process assessment, students should be able to complete each project and fulfill the professional competence required by the project. Comprehensive assessment is mainly to assess the students’ ability to apply the knowledge learned in this course, and to check the mastery of the vocational skills to be acquired in this course comprehensively. At the same time, it should be combined with the certification requirements of industry enterprises to examine students’ mastery of basic theoretical knowledge through theoretical examinations.
5. Research Results
5.1. Course Content Development
The objectives of finance majors are to cultivate high-quality skilled talents who can engage in banking, securities, insurance and other industries. Combined with the university’s orientation, the objectives of training finance professionals are to cultivate middle- and high-end technical and service-oriented professionals. They should be oriented to the first line of production, construction, management and service, with basic knowledge of economics, finance, insurance theory, securities investment, and commercial banking. Moreover, they should be equipped with insurance business capabilities, banking business capabilities, securities business capabilities and comprehensive business capabilities, and be able to undertake front-line grassroots business positions in financial institutions, as well as to work in grassroots economic management positions in enterprises and institutions.
The main objective of the university-enterprise cooperation in the development of the finance program is to “organize the curriculum in units of professional activities oriented to the needs of professional competencies” and to build a curriculum based on the work process that integrates the learning system and the project system. To this end, the course content is developed according to the following ideas.
① The talent training objectives are determined according to the needs of enterprises and the orientation of majors.
② Talent training objectives guide the talent training program.
③ Talent training program, together with skill competition requirements and industry knowledge update, determine the course content to be developed.
④ Under the guidance of course content development, specific tasks include writing course standards, lesson plans, assessment standards, practical training guides, specific teaching designs, creating courseware, collecting relevant materials, recording online courses, etc.
⑤ Finally, the course resources are adjusted according to the requirements of content development and updating.
5.2. Establishing a Mechanism to Guarantee University-Enterprise Cooperation
Based on economic considerations, enterprises consider that they give more than they receive in the process of training students to become qualified employees. As a result, some enterprises are not motivated to participate in talent training. In addition, many university-enterprise cooperation projects are merely superficial, and the connection between the university and enterprises is not tight, and there is less interaction, which does not enable students to have real contact with enterprises, resulting in the problem of insufficient access of students to enterprise resources. At the same time, students’ practical ability is not really exercised. Therefore, in the process of curriculum development, the research group will focus on exploring how to eliminate obstacles to cooperation, and establish a guarantee mechanism to enable schools and enterprises to cooperate in depth, so as to carry out corresponding curriculum construction research smoothly.
6. Conclusion
In the vocational education, it is common for most scholars to investigate the enhancement of talent cultivation through university-enterprise cooperation in engineering majors, but relatively less in the financial industry, which is developing rapidly and has a significant talent shortage. Based on a large amount of literature, this project draws on a number of typical cases of curriculum development and university-enterprise cooperation in vocational education, and proposes innovations in the training mode for finance majors. It is hoped to consolidate the foundation of finance majors in vocational colleges for their practice and reduce the social cost of vocational retraining after students enter the workplace.
In terms of course content, the previous focus on theoretical learning should be shifted. For vocational students, the overview of meanings is much less important than the understanding of practical operations. In the exploration of course content, the research group will combine the characteristics of finance students, emphasize the professional practical and hands-on training links, pay attention to the dynamics of the skills development and knowledge updates in the financial industry, and make timely adjustments to the curriculum. In addition, as the division of jobs in the financial industry becomes more refined, the group will try to incorporate more career-oriented course contents in the courses for finance majors, with employment-oriented and competence building as the main focus.
Acknowledgements
This work was financially supported by the Educational Science Planning Project of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in 2021 (NGJGH2021572).