Economic transition and educational innovation: Shenzhen Polytechnic University's model of skill formation with Chinese characteristics

Training goals aligned with economic demands

Beginning in the 1990s, Shenzhen resolved to shift from an extensive model of economic development, thus putting forth its Ninth Five-Year Plan with the explicit goal that by 2000, the output value of high-tech products should constitute 35% of the city's total industrial output, equivalent to an increase of 14.5 percentage points. The plan was designed to advance the industrialization of cutting-edge sectors, modernize scientific and technological equipment, and optimize the knowledge structure of the workforce. These efforts, in turn, were intended to propel development toward a fundamental transformation that enhanced overall quality and fostered new competitive advantages. In 1996, Shenzhen established a high-tech industrial park in Nanshan District, and in the following year, it released the Development Plan for Shenzhen High-Tech Industrial Park, which heralded the beginning of an industrial evolution and upgrade driven by state-of-the-art industries. These initiatives were aimed at facilitating the growth of technology-intensive enterprises. Accordingly, progress in high-tech industries urgently necessitated appropriate human resource support, but there was a significant shortage of experts. In 1999, Shenzhen had only 584 individuals with a college education or higher per 10,000 employed persons, a figure notably lower than that in Beijing (965) and Guangzhou (634). Among the 184,000 technicians employed by municipal enterprises, only 5.8% were senior technicians, which was considerably lower than the 30% observed in developed countries (Shenzhen Municipal Bureau of Statistics, 2008). The task of addressing Shenzhen's labor resource demands for economic development was entrusted to SZPU.

In response to this call, the newly established SZPU has addressed the prevailing inclination toward traditional university education by clearly defining its training objectives so that it could cultivate application-oriented technical specialists who possess comprehensive vocational competence, robust career development capabilities, and the requisite qualities to serve on the frontlines of production and work sites, providing technical guidance and management to workers. More specifically, SZPU's training objectives are structured into three tiers. The first focuses on developing engineering transformation skills that are essential for production sites, enabling the conversion of blueprints into tangible products. The second tier revolves around fostering technical guidance and management competencies, along with the ability to perform technical coordination functions at work sites. The third encompasses guaranteeing the potential for career development through the cultivation of comprehensive vocational skills to support sustainable growth in talent.

Market demand-oriented program design

During this foundational phase, China had yet to establish specific national policies for the design of programs in higher vocational education, thereby compelling vocational institutions to model their offerings after the catalogs of general undergraduate universities. This conventional approach was disregarded by SZPU, which instead adopted a distinctive principle: "We establish our programs wherever Shenzhen's economic growth emerges". The university argues that as the bridge between societal needs and vocational education, academic programs must align with Shenzhen's industrial landscape for these programs to effectively cultivate vocational talent. Therefore, the university deems it necessary to "find ways to establish programs that align with the vocational and technical skills demanded by the market". SZPU further uses markets, occupations, and technologies as key features that distinguish its program design from those of general universities. Specifically, it emphasizes "market demand-oriented, occupation-based, and technology-driven" approaches to comprehensively guiding program development. This principle takes into account Shenzhen's industrial restructuring, urban functional positioning, and evolving requirements for social talent as essential prerequisites for program planning.

SZPU correspondingly developed a three-dimensional "coordinate" model for program design, driven by market demand as the primary dimension, structured around occupational job clusters, and defined by technical content as the quality dimension. This model's implementation was typified by the development of Shenzhen's digital creative industry in 2002, when the city's animation industry was in its infancy. SZPU invested 6 million yuan to establish an animation department—three years before the municipal government's 2005 Animation Capital strategic plan was issued. The university's strategy of "intervention during the industry's emerging phase and formation during the policy window period" effectively achieved spatiotemporal correspondence between program structure and regional industrial upgrading, creating a positive interactive pattern wherein "programs were half a step ahead of the industry". Following this strategy, SZPU established program designs that not only satisfied but also anticipated industry demands.

Institutionalized innovation in school–enterprise cooperation

Alignment with economic growth opportunities necessitated collaboration with enterprises. To encourage their participation, SZPU emphasized the need to "explore every possible approach to channel industry and enterprise enthusiasm into the entire education process". This direction adhered to the core principle of "mutual benefit and service of enterprises". Building on this foundation, the university initiated enterprise-focused training, technical research and development (R & D), and on-site educational services. From 2003 to 2005, SZPU conducted more than 20,000 vocational skill assessments and delivered vocational training and skill certification services to over 30,000 individuals. These efforts spanned more than 100 projects, encompassing junior, intermediate, advanced, and technician levels.

To tackle weak school–enterprise collaboration in Chinese vocational institutions at the time, SZPU developed a "bidirectional empowerment" cooperation framework, which involved generating enterprise value through technical R & D services and vocational skill assessments, accumulating 30,000 person-times from 2003 to 2005. The framework also entailed leveraging enterprise resources, which has resulted in equipment donations accounting for 35% of the total training equipment used in the university and part-time enterprise instructors constituting 21% of the total teaching staff. In particular, the establishment of the Program Management Committee system in 1995 marked an innovative step in the delivery of vocational education in China. By engaging industry experts in the formulation of talent cultivation plans, the Program Management Committee ensured dynamic alignment between the curriculum and vocational standards, creating a closed-loop feedback system that seamlessly integrated "educational supply" with "industry demand". During this period, school–enterprise cooperation in educational practice typically reflected a model of production–education integration that was centered on and spearheaded by schools.

Organizational innovation in teaching

SZPU adopted a teaching approach grounded in the "three proximity" principle: Aligning closely with production, technologies, and processes while also pursuing organizational innovation. First, the university adopted the principle of "teaching according to job requirements" and enhanced the role of the Program Management Committee to include guiding program design, training plans, and teaching outlines, ensuring that teaching content satisfied industry and job requirements. Second, in 1997, China established its first large-scale, advanced on-campus training base designed to simulate real vocational environments—the Industrial Training Center. Centrally managed by the university, it replaced the traditional laboratories of general universities with training workshops (rooms) modeled after modern factories as the primary venue for practical teaching. Over this time span, the Industrial Training Center functioned as a principal centrally managed institution and the primary mechanism for vocational skill development at SZPU. Owing to the center's state-of-the-art equipment and training resources, it effectively fulfilled the vocational and technical training needs of students at the time. Third, the "dual-qualified" faculty development system mandated that instructors of professional courses have both extensive theoretical knowledge in their fields and substantial practical experience. SZPU attached considerable importance to the need for educators to engage in practical, hands-on teaching rather than relying on rote methods to ensure that students find the classroom experience both valuable and fulfilling. In 1999, more than 40% of SZPU's regular faculty members were senior engineers or technicians with frontline experience. This was accompanied by the remarkable achievements of SZPU students, underscored by their exceptional performance in various Chinese language skill competitions. Students graduating from popular programs consistently enjoyed high employability, often being "reserved" for positions even before graduation, and 30 students successfully obtained the Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert from 2004 to 2005.

Moreover, SZPU established an educational practice system focused on cultivating technical skills tailored to specific job roles. The educational and teaching processes were designed to closely match employment requirements, effectively addressing the labor market demands of the time. This focus set the university apart from traditional higher education, positioning it as a leader and model among modern vocational institutions. Naturally, during this stage, Shenzhen had begun planning for the advancement of its high-tech industry, but the effectiveness of related policies was slow to manifest. The profit performance of Shenzhen's top 100 enterprises indicated that profits in 2005 reached 28.228 billion yuan, representing a 3.70% increase over the levels achieved in 2004 (i.e., 27.221 billion yuan). However, profit growth was significantly lower than the overall expansion in volume, suggesting that many enterprises were still in the early stages of attempting extensive development (Wei, 2005). Within this period, Shenzhen retained a labor-intensive economy characterized by relatively simple and singular technical demands.

Refining and adjusting training goals

SZPU conducted a tracking survey from 2007 to 2011 on the demand for human resource quality among more than 2100 enterprises in the Pearl River Delta. The survey results clearly showed that enterprises prioritize comprehensive qualities, such as responsibility and communication skills, over specific vocational abilities. In 2012, the university cultivated well-rounded technical talent by emphasizing "ethical and professional advancement, the integration of learning and critical thinking, and the coordination of mind and hands".

The need to adjust training objectives arose from significant pressure on educational practices due to Shenzhen's industrial transformation and labor market demands. From an external perspective, the city's economic progress had transitioned into a stage characterized by independent innovation driven primarily by high-tech industries. This movement engendered a trend of advancement marked by considerable added value and advanced technological content. In 2009, Shenzhen released the Overall Plan for Shenzhen's Modern Industrial System (2009-2015), setting clear development targets: The added value of technologically sophisticated industries was to account for 35% of the city's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), modern service industries were to comprise over 60% of the tertiary sector, and the output value of cutting-edge products protected by proprietary intellectual property was to exceed 70%. The year 2011 witnessed Shenzhen's high-tech industrial park, which occupied less than 0.6% of the city's land area, achieve an industrial output value of 363.012 billion yuan. This accomplishment represented a 20.16% year-on-year growth and contributed 17.78% to the city's total industrial output value. The industrial added value amounted to 109.59 billion yuan, denoting a year-on-year increase of 36.78% and constituting 21.94% of Shenzhen's total industrial added value. This explosive advancement in the high-tech industry rendered the previous stage's singular focus on operational technical training for frontline positions insufficient.

More importantly, as external circumstances evolved, the marginal effectiveness of SZPU's then-operational system for building capabilities for technical practice was declining. By 2006, the institution had a full-time student enrollment of 20,000—figures that kept growing, making it challenging for the Industrial Training Center to effectively support the development of technical expertise for all students. To begin with, although the center's equipment assets and the per-student value of teaching and research equipment had been steadily increasing, they still lagged behind the rapid advancements and evolving demands of the industry in Shenzhen. Additionally, the requirements for developing practical skills across different programs had become increasingly diverse and personalized. Consequently, the centralized technical training model, which relied on the Industrial Training Center, could no longer adequately address these evolving needs. These changes have also driven the school to recognize the necessity of moving beyond a narrow focus on producing individuals with purely technical "tool-like" abilities. Instead, greater emphasis must be placed on addressing students' various developmental needs to mold exceptional, well-rounded technical professionals capable of meeting the demands of swiftly transforming sophisticated industries.

Introduction and application of cultural education concepts

To address the tendency of vocational education to produce "tool-like" competencies, SZPU integrated cultural education into its curriculum. The core essence of such education lay in the integration of technical adeptness and cultural development in higher vocational education. During this period, society largely relegated vocational education to a means of livelihood training, acknowledging only its skill acquisition dimension while overlooking its role in fostering students' capacity for sustainable development and their humanistic qualities. Vocational education had been predisposed to miss the cultural aspects of learning, prioritizing only the development of job-specific skills while neglecting the cultivation of professional cultural heritage and innovation. From SZPU's perspective, while graduates from higher vocational institutions may have held "dual certificates" that addressed immediate employment and job placement challenges, issues related to sustainable development and core competitiveness had gradually surfaced over time, with a lack of cultural foundation being a significant contributor to this problem. Culture exerts a profound influence on vocational careers and lifelong evolution. Higher vocational education should not be confined to narrow technical goals while inadvertently ignoring the nurturing of professional competence and a humanistic spirit. On this basis, SZPU asserts that its educational practices should "advance cultural education with a heightened sense of cultural awareness, guide the cultivation of skilled talent through cultural leadership, and drive the transformation and advancement of higher vocational education".

Throughout this stage, SZPU's foregrounding of cultural education concepts only partially aligned with the prevailing practices of Chinese vocational institutions. Following the issuance of China's 2005 Decision on Vigorously Developing Vocational Education, vocational institutions focused primarily on two key areas: Prioritizing employment-oriented education and enhancing students' practical and vocational abilities. They then considered students' vocational skills and employment rates as core metrics for assessing the effectiveness of educational and teaching practices. China's 2010 Outline of the National Medium- and Long-Term Plan for Education Reform and Development (2010-2020), along with related policies, highlighted the importance of integrating work and study, fostering collaboration between schools and businesses, and improving students' employability. From 2006 to 2010, there was a marked inclination toward vocational skill development, with higher vocational education increasingly accentuating this aspect in its endeavors (Wang et al., 2024). Under policy guidance, local higher vocational institutions leveraged their latecomer advantages to pay greater attention to honing students' technical skills. Conversely, SZPU concentrated its efforts on implementing an exhaustive cultural education approach, which appeared somewhat unconventional. The institution recognized the pressing competitive challenge of "followers becoming leaders". Its principle of "cultivating skilled talent through cultural guidance" foregrounded the imparting of knowledge in the humanities, arts, sciences, and other cultural domains, training students through university culture and integrating practical experiences into courses. This approach was designed to elevate students' ideological and moral standards, humanistic and scientific literacy, aesthetic sensibilities, and cultural appreciation while equipping them with vocational aptitude to fulfill the need for versatile technical talent.

Transformation of teaching practices

By 2006, as full-time student enrollment surpassed 20,000, the centralized model of technical skills development centered on the Industrial Training Center proved inadequate for meeting practical demands. To address this issue, SZPU has progressively advanced its strategy of "decentralizing the technical training model" since 2009. First, it revamped the system for building job competencies before decentralizing the cultivation of professional practical skills to assign responsibility to its secondary colleges. By establishing diverse forms of school–enterprise collaboration, such as training platforms and workshops, SZPU dealt with the increasingly specialized and individualized demands of different programs for practical skill development. However, while it expanded the capabilities of the Industrial Training Center, the primary focus remained the delivery of general technical training.

Second, SZPU implemented a "dual-track approach to advancing both skills and culture". Cultural education not only complemented singular technical objectives but was also integral to the teaching process, placing equal emphasis on the development of students' comprehensive qualities, sustainable development capabilities, and technical skills. In 2013, the university issued the Outline for the Implementation of Cultural Education and established the Cultural Education Research and Development Center, in addition to the Cultural Quality Education Base. This initiative comprehensively launched cultural education practices that covered more than a dozen themes, including faculty development and student engagement. To enhance students' cultural literacy, the university organized over 500 cultural lectures between 2009 and 2013, attracting a total audience of more than 80,000. At that time, such a level of cultural edification was rare among Chinese higher vocational institutions. By reinforcing its cultural cultivation goals, SZPU had exhaustively restructured its teaching processes, systematically enhancing the ideological and spiritual qualities of both faculty and students as well as their professional competencies.

Third, SZPU explored mechanisms for collaboration among government, schools, industry, and enterprises while also developing open operational models. In this framework, local governments were instrumental in policy leadership, financial support, and assurance functions, while educational institutions offered a range of resources and platforms for teaching. Industry endeavors were directed toward research on industrial policies, forecasting talent demand, and formulating vocational standards. Leveraging their production and technical expertise, enterprises contributed to the development of curricula, textbooks, and practical teaching. By 2012, SZPU had forged stable partnerships with over 2000 renowned enterprises, industries, and government departments with the support of the Shenzhen municipal government. This collaboration gave birth to numerous national industry associations, public technical service platforms, and policy consulting institutions, thereby providing essential external backing for education and teaching. The main issues plaguing school–enterprise collaboration in China's vocational education delivery at this time were shallow engagement, fragmentation, superficial cooperation, and a mismatch between nurtured skills and industry demands. The effectiveness of school–enterprise cooperation in practice was hindered by deep-rooted institutional barriers. In the first place, the lack of robust skill-based reward mechanisms in the labor market and the limited career advancement pathways for skilled workers diminished individuals' motivation to pursue vocational education. Similarly, enterprises lacked the intrinsic motivation necessary to immerse themselves in vocational education due to the external risks associated with skill investment and the pressures stemming from short-term costs. Across this developmental phase, SZPU's educational initiatives deepened and broadened the practice of vocational education, establishing a robust foundation for tackling forthcoming challenges.

Defining the objectives for building world-class vocational institutions

The 2014 State Council Decision on Accelerating the Development of Modern Vocational Education in China explicitly stipulates the goal of establishing world-class vocational institutions and flagship programs, thereby creating hubs for talent cultivation with strong international competitiveness. At Shenzhen's 2016 Two Sessions, municipal leaders emphasized that although the city's vocational education system ranked among the best in China, it remained far behind international first-class standards and the city's demands for state-of-the-art, precision, and intelligent manufacturing. In response, the 2017 Shenzhen Annual Education Work Conference explicitly tasked SZPU with developing a plan for constructing premier vocational institutions with Chinese characteristics, to be submitted to the Communist Party of China (CPC) Shenzhen Municipal Committee and Shenzhen Municipal People's Government. This responsibility gained central importance for SZPU.

One of the critical issues was how to define the evaluation standards for "world-class" vocational education. Although there are currently no universally accepted indicators of first-class vocational education, international experience has pointed to German vocational education as the exemplar primarily because of its significant contributions to national economic and social development, as well as its global reputation stemming from the promotion of its "dual system" model. This assertion resonated with SZPU, which accordingly pursued excellence via close integration between educational practices and the industries of Shenzhen, serving as the cornerstone for the school's establishment in Shenzhen and the key to building globally competitive vocational institutions. SZPU further refined its talent cultivation objectives to direct attention particularly to nurturing innovative and diverse technical professionals.

China's latest technological revolution and industrial transformation have centered on artificial intelligence—a rapidly progressing initiative, thus necessitating the development of exceptional technical talent and the establishment of outstanding vocational institutions. The added value of Shenzhen's strategic emerging industries rose from 531.478 billion yuan in 2013 to 918.355 billion yuan in 2017, reflecting an average annual growth rate of nearly 20%. The city actively advances its evolution into a premier city in artificial intelligence, digital twin technology, and global digital energy innovation. Recent studies have suggested that digital transformation in enterprises primarily facilitates an increase in high-skilled employees (Wang & Zhang, 2024), giving rise to the creation of numerous positions that require mastery (Li et al., 2024). These changes presented significant challenges to the development of vocational institutions and their training objectives, sending a clear and urgent signal to SZPU to accelerate its pursuit of superior development. Accordingly, the social foundation for refining vocational education considerably changed. Intent on building world-class vocational institutions, SZPU augmented its educational practices by fulfilling its mission to support national, regional, and industrial development.

Correspondingly, the institution developed 24 observable, measurable, and assessable indicators covering five key areas: Capability for talent cultivation, program development, technical R & D and services, the quality of faculty, and the degree of internationalization. To prevent the dilution of its concentration on "first-class" standards, SZPU adopted a pyramidal indicator structure. At the foundational level, principal metrics included a 98% student employment rate and a 10% entrepreneurship rate. At the core level, SZPU enhanced its technical feedback capabilities, successfully serving 1500 enterprises over three years with a conversion rate of 68%. At the leadership level, the focus was on actively formulating industry standards and expanding authority for setting guidelines. The evaluation criteria for talent cultivation encompassed the proportion of students employed by Fortune 500 or industry-leading companies, the percentage of recent graduates obtaining internationally recognized certifications, best-in-class industrial endeavors to secure starting and mid-career salaries for graduates, the extent of alumni entrepreneurship, and the achievements of students in competitions and patenting. This system provided clear guidance and momentum for realizing the objectives underlying school construction.

Aligning program design with Shenzhen's industrial structure

Effectively contributing extraordinary value to Shenzhen's social development warrants the consistency of academic programs with the city's industrial structure. Shenzhen has established a development framework consisting of four pillar industries, seven strategic emerging industries, and five future industries. SZPU, situated in Nanshan District, puts a premium on sectors such as communication, the digital economy, new materials, digital audiovisuals, digital software, creative design, robotics, wearable devices, and more. The district also hosts renowned companies that include DJI, ZTE, and Huawei. To improve the caliber of educational practices, SZPU introduced the strategy of "developing programs based on industrial chains" to achieve alignment between industry and the aforementioned settings. First, SZPU has conducted in-depth research on industry enterprises, firmly believing that "the cultivation of high-quality talent must be grounded in a deep understanding of industry enterprises". To enhance the transformation of enterprise resources into assets for program development, SZPU carries out systematic and dedicated enterprise research annually. In 2023, it refined and established a revolutionary industry–enterprise tracking system, steering program development in a way that integrated technical, operational, and innovation logics. Second, SZPU has optimized its mechanisms for dynamic program adjustment and enhanced its review systems for discipline and program establishment with industry–enterprise participation. On the basis of Shenzhen's industrial structure, the university has introduced 37 new programs, transformed and upgraded 72 offerings, and closed or merged 29 programs. This refinement has resulted in 97% alignment between specialized settings and industry needs, equivalent to an increase of 32 percentage points over the national average.

Strong school–enterprise dual-entity collaboration

SZPU has articulated a clear strategy for building a world-class vocational institution: "Partnering with top-tier enterprises to deliver top-tier education". By emphasizing the integral function of enterprises and seamlessly integrating education and teaching into the collaborative framework of schools and businesses, the university has created the conditions for a profound transformation of the conventional educational model. The main approaches encompass three aspects.

The first is collaboration with premier enterprises to establish specialized industrial colleges, creating a dual-entity education model that involves schools and enterprises. Supported by the Shenzhen Municipal People's Government, SZPU has facilitated each specialization cluster's collaboration with a Fortune 500 company or leading enterprise to establish distinctive industrial colleges. These efforts revolve around the core needs of industrial and innovation chains, fostering a shared, sustainable, and stable dual-entity cooperation model. SZPU has also established 18 specialized industrial colleges with top corporations such as Huawei, BYD, DJI, and Han's Laser. Their partnership covers nine domains: Party building, curriculum development, faculty training, technical R & D, industry standards, certification, innovation, entrepreneurship, and internationalization through "nine joint efforts". Characteristic industrial colleges operate under a governance model wherein the president is accountable to a board of directors. Their curricula are meticulously aligned with global industrial development trends and complement Shenzhen's strategic emerging industries, future industries, modern service sectors, and traditional industries with competitive advantages.

The second aspect is the construction of platforms for services in technical skill innovation through leading-edge applied research. Such research and service capabilities have been rapidly advanced by SZPU, thus paving the way for innovation in educational practice by creating the necessary space and resource conditions for this undertaking. It has worked with dominant domestic and international corporations to establish a network of applied technology innovation centers and public technical service platforms in fields such as next-generation information technology, biomedicine, new energy, advanced materials, energy conservation and environmental protection, robotics, and intelligent manufacturing. More specifically, the institution has established six workstations and laboratories for academics, 14 applied technology innovation centers, and 10 publicly accessible technical service platforms. These initiatives include cutting-edge platforms such as the Hoffmann Advanced Materials Research Institute, the Intelligent Manufacturing Technology Research Institute, and the Intelligent Science and Engineering Research Institute. Over the past three years, SZPU's technical research and development, along with its services, has benefited over 1500 enterprises, thus facilitating the conversion of numerous achievements and robustly supporting the cultivation of technical skills in high-end, precision, and intelligent manufacturing.

The third aspect is pioneering the establishment of a Future Technology College. SZPU, in collaboration with the Shenzhen Nanshan District government, built the Future Technology College with a view to nurturing top-tier talent in hard-tech innovation and entrepreneurship. The college fosters strong partnerships with enterprises, focusing on three major industries—consumer electronics, intelligent healthcare, and intelligent manufacturing—as well as professional roles such as enterprise founders, product managers, and system engineers. By breaking down disciplinary boundaries, promoting project-based learning, designing curriculum modules congruent with industry chains, and implementing outcome-oriented assessments, the college effectively cultivates innovation and entrepreneurial skills among students. Future Technology College not only empowers students to independently shape their professional paths through interdisciplinary curriculum design but also evaluates learning through market outcomes. It also encourages enrollees to launch enterprises rooted in their projects, striving to build a platform that helps build and sustain hard-tech enterprises.

The initiatives undertaken by SZPU to establish leading vocational institutions have proved effective. In recent years, the initial employment rate of SZPU graduates has consistently exceeded 98%, with 29% securing positions at Fortune 500 companies and premier enterprises within one year of graduation. In 2024, 95% of enrollees in vocational programs surpassed undergraduate admission thresholds, with the minimum scores exceeding the special type admission control score by 27 points. That same year, the success rate of graduate entrepreneurs surpassed 10%. These data illustrate the effectiveness of SZPU's strategy of "leveraging top-tier enterprises to advance education", offering valuable insights and exemplary models for the development of China's skill formation system.