Gansu Office

Representative Office Gansu

Our work at the Hanns-Seidel-Foundation office in Gansu Province focuses on working with educational institutions in the field of vocational education as partners. Within the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations, we focus our activities on sustainable education, which aims to empower graduates to make responsible decisions. In this way, graduates should be able to assume social, economic and ecological responsibility in their daily lives, in the world of work and in society. Aspects of environmental and climate protection, the equal participation of all people in education and the promotion of educational quality and equal opportunities on the basis of transparent development and decision-making processes in the field of education are given equal consideration.

Project Goals

Students from vocational secondary schools and colleges who do not have a university entrance qualification are stigmatized as losers in Chinese society from the outset. In order to increase the attractiveness of vocational training, our partner schools are to provide vocational training that will increase the chances of graduates of vocational secondary schools and colleges who are disadvantaged on the labor market - initially solely due to the fact that they do not have a university degree - to enter the labor market or find employment in the sense of sustainable education. This is the basis for a significant increase in equal participation in Chinese society. The prevailing vocational training in China, on the other hand, does too little to prepare students for their future lives, is largely provided in school-based form, is heavily theory-based and often takes place during lectures. We therefore focus our activities on promoting action- and student-oriented teaching methods for training staff, providing educational advice and support for educational institutions and improving the quality of education by implementing and evaluating quality standards in our partner institutions.

Project description

Further training for teaching staff at vocational secondary schools and colleges

Future-oriented vocational training requires teaching staff with up-to-date training. Chinese teaching staff are not optimally qualified for the teaching profession due to their predominantly theoretical training. As a result, there are almost no practical elements in lessons. For this reason, we provide teaching staff with methodological and didactic training in activity-based teaching methods at training centers in China. The aim is to provide practical and student-oriented lessons that promote the trainees' problem-solving skills and help them learn to take responsibility for themselves, for the work process, for the environment and for their fellow human beings, thus improving their chances of finding employment on the job market. The inclusion of topics relating to climate and environmental protection is just as much a matter of course as the teaching of teaching methods that particularly support trainees with learning difficulties.

Support in the development of didactic competence centers

Our Hanns-Seidel-Foundation office in Gansu Province has always worked closely with so-called support schools. These are vocational secondary schools and colleges in China that receive individual advice on methodological and didactic issues. Building on this, targeted teacher training can then be offered for activity- and student-oriented teaching methods. One focus of our current work is the development of these support schools into didactic competence centers, which will further intensify our existing cooperation. The initial focus is on setting up a pilot class in which lessons can be tested, improved and adapted to specific learning situations in the Chinese context. Through consultations and targeted training measures with experts, the aim is to develop an annual didactic plan and teaching materials that are adapted to the framework conditions of the respective educational institution and can then be transferred to other classes. At the same time, a dynamic school development process is to be initiated that is capable of improving the quality of teaching even in the face of changing conditions. This knowledge will then be passed on to other vocational secondary schools and colleges.