As an entrepreneurial higher vocational college with a long history in China, Shandong Institute of Commerce and Technology (SICT) has distinctive business characteristics and strives to create a new paradigm for the cultivation of Innovative and Entrepreneurial talents.
SICT has achieved a great number of awards, including China Model Higher Vocational College, China High-Quality College, China Leading Vocational Education Institution, and High-level Higher Vocational College (Double-high Plan) with Chinese Characteristics among the top 10 in China. The college has always adhered to the principle of “developing business and cold chain education based on technology updating“. It carries out demand-oriented and innovation-driven education, integrates innovation and entrepreneurship education into the entire process of talent training, promotes the reform of innovation and entrepreneurship education comprehensively. SICT has achieved the following honorary titles awarded by the Ministry of Education of China, including Advanced Unit for Graduate Employment, College with Typical Experience in Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Demonstration College for Deepening Innovation and Entrepreneurship Education Reform, Innovative and Entrepreneurial Base for Education through Practice of Universities and Colleges, Construction Unit of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Institute.
The college implements the innovation and entrepreneurship education mechanism of “professional education + vocational skills training + employment guidance + entrepreneurial culture edification”, explores the new model of innovation and entrepreneurship education of “Project-driven, digital innovation, and precision entrepreneurship”, striving to cultivate more innovative and entrepreneurial talents and creating SICT Innovation And Entrepreneurship Vocational Education brand. In 2018, the project Research on and Construction of the “Four Integration and Five Progression” Innovation and Entrepreneurship Practice Teaching System in Higher Vocational Colleges won the second prize of the Higher Education Teaching Achievements Award of China. In the past 5 years, the college has incubated over 1,000 college students’ entrepreneurship projects, 6 of which had a valuation exceeding RMB10 million. People’s Daily, Guangming Daily, China Education Newspaper and other state-level media have reported on the remarkable results achieved by SICT in the field of innovation and entrepreneurship education.
Adhering to the project-driven and immersive experience, SICT promotes the transformation of innovation and entrepreneurship project from “exploring new fields” to “concentrating on major businesses”.
Based on the concept of “OBE (Outcomes-based Education)” oriented by student learning outcomes, and centered on student growth, the college has made great efforts to create a new paradigm for the cultivation of innovative and entrepreneurial talents.
Based on the students’ practice teaching tasks, teachers and students jointly undertake innovation and entrepreneurship projects that coincide with practical teaching tasks, with the “Double-high Plan” major group taking the dominant position and other major groups as technical support. Then, in accordance with the project process management method (WBS), the project is subdivided into courses to form a “work package”, driving and guiding the teaching of multiple courses in the way of project management, thus forming a systematic and multi-course collaborated teaching system combining theory and practice for teachers and students to focus on the whole process of the innovation and entrepreneurship project.
At the same time, industrial resources are introduced into the main channel for talent training to guide teachers and students in customization, research and development. For the application of innovation and entrepreneurship projects, the college has organized enterprise proposition team, actively invited enterprises to issue proposition lists and encouraged teachers and students to undertake associated projects. Since the initiation of the “Double-high Plan” Higher Vocational Colleges, 20 major projects have been successfully approved.
Adhering to the leading of “DTBE”, and building an innovation and entrepreneurship education curriculum system of “Three Progression, Three Integration, and Four Through”
“Three Progression” refers to the progression in “general education curriculum group + integrated professional curriculum group + practice expansion curriculum group” with cultivating innovative technical professionals as the goal; “Three Integration” refers to the integration of spirit, the integration of innovation and entrepreneurship, and the integration of courses and certificates; “Four Through” refers to the innovation and entrepreneurship education curriculum system of “Four Classrooms throughout the whole education”. First Classroom focuses on innovation and entrepreneurship education, Second Classroom focuses on association and entrepreneurship competition, Third Classroom focuses on cultivating incubation projects, and Fourth Classroom docks international cutting-edge courses, covering general education, vocational education, and outward education in the students’ whole learning process. SICT also integrated the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals into its education, and comprehensively cooperated with Tsinghua University x-Lab and the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) in holding competitions to promote course-competition integration. Through the curriculum system, SICT aims to cultivate innovative technical professionals with four essential core skills, including D (Design Innovation), T (Technological Innovation), B (Business Innovation) and E (Entrepreneurship Innovation).
Adhering to digital empowerment, and promoting the transformation of the integration of industry and innovation education from “encouraging popular projects” to “targeted project docking”
SICT has continued to enrich digital resources, actively implemented various forms of flipped classroom teaching, and adopted various teaching methods, including “research-based” teaching methods and “participatory” teaching methods. Besides, it has set up interdisciplinary courses, promoted the sharing of high-quality teaching resources, and created an “Internet + innovation and entrepreneurship education” model based on network information technology. The college has actively introduced digital and intelligent resources including an APP providing innovation and entrepreneurship information services and SimVenture for enterprise operation simulation, and has built 1 virtual simulation sharing management platform + 4 business literacy cultivation centers + 6 virtual simulation training centers through “digital empowerment”, to solve practical problems existing in product research and development, design, business model construction, etc., thus cultivating students’ ability in innovation data analysis, resource linking and integration, and value chain reconstruction.
The college has built a matrix of innovation and entrepreneurship mentors inside and outside the school, established targeted docking channels, and encouraged scientific and technological innovation to promote the in-depth docking of teacher-student teams with the industry. In addition, the college has actively joined in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship Alliance of Higher Colleges of Qilu Science and Technology Corridor, and joined hands with the regional demonstration base for innovation and entrepreneurship to participate in the supply and demand matchmaking meeting of entrepreneurial projects, and has made sound social effect.
Adhering to the integration of occupational education & innovation education and diversified education to promote the transformation of innovation and entrepreneurship genes from “artery driven” to “capillary penetration”
The college has always adhered to the innovative and entrepreneurial talent training concept integrating “awareness, ability and practice”, and introduced the qualities such as honesty and trustworthiness and real cases into innovation and entrepreneurship theory and practice course teaching links, in order to cultivate talents by combining entrepreneurship with occupational education and innovation education. It has made full use of the Second Classroom, and held the “Entrepreneur Lectures” to invite outstanding professionals to give lectures and guidance on innovation and entrepreneurship and craftsman spirit based on their majors.
Based on the characteristics of students of higher vocational colleges, the college set up a labor practice center in 2012 to combine labor education with innovation and entrepreneurship education, building a systematic, scientific, standardized, and effectively operated innovation and entrepreneurship practice teaching system with “labor practice education” as the core, fostering virtue through education as the fundamental goal, strengthening innovation and entrepreneurship practice as a breakthrough, and off-campus labor practice base as the platform. It has built a “12345” (1 center, 2 teams, 3 forms, 4 links and 5 promotions) innovation and entrepreneurship labor practical teaching system with full participation, and created four major practical education modules of “same goal-oriented curriculum design, volunteer associations connection, professional labor practice deepening, and community service expansion”, to enhance the civic awareness, vocational skill and vocational qualities of college students, and effectively promote the all-round development of morality, intelligence, physique, aesthetics and labor.
V. Adhering to coordinated development, paying attention to the quality of talents, improving social services, and making every efforts to create an SICT innovation and entrepreneurship vocational education brand
The college opens up to the enterprises to carry out innovation and entrepreneurship education, accurately matching industrial demands, and promoting original innovation, technology research and development and achievement transformation in a coordinated process. In order to deeply implement the special action of “school-enterprise cooperation” for entrepreneurship and employment, the college has built a demonstration base for innovation and entrepreneurship with over 30 enterprises, and carried out more than 100 project dockings. With cold chain technology, it has helped fruit farmers in Mengyin County, Linyi City solve the temperature control problem in the long-distance transportation, making Mengyin Peach successfully enter the international markets such as Dubai with a total export revenue of USD 80 million.
Students have gradually strengthened their innovation and entrepreneurship awareness, and seen significant improvement in their employability and manipulative ability. Some of them won the gold medal of the 2nd China College Students’ “Internet+” Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition (the only winner among students from higher vocational colleges) and the gold medal of the 5th China College Students’ “Internet+” Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition (the only winner among students from universities and colleges in Shandong province), and the representatives were cordially received by the national leaders; The college has formed its own brand of innovation and entrepreneurship education model, with the results arousing widespread concern in the society, and exported the experience of innovation and entrepreneurship education reform and provided support to over 10 colleges and universities inside and outside Shandong province.