Education expo showcases jobs
The latest in vocational education development as well as potential careers were showcased at the 16th Shanghai Education Expo over the past three days.
The annual event at the Shanghai Exhibition Center attracted about 100 exhibitors, including more than 70 percent of local vocational schools, as well as 16 district education bureaus and related enterprises.
The booth of the Shanghai Business and Tourism School, a vocational secondary school, was crowded on Friday when the expo kicked off.
Famous electronic game player and anchor Zi Min, who has more than 2 million fans online, showed up to help promote a new major at the school — e-sports operation and management.
“The market scale of e-sports has already surpassed that of the film and TV industries,” he said. “E-sports is not just playing games, but involves a big industrial chain with various kinds of jobs. Our government has shown great support for the development of e-sports.
“Pupils can learn everything related to e-sports here and choose what they are interested in as their future career.”
Yu Jie, a teacher at the school, said the new major was launched as Shanghai is ambitious to build itself as a global e-sports center.
According to Yu, the school will welcome the first class of 60 students majoring in e-sports operation and management in September.
The students will learn not only the basics of the e-sports industry, applied English for e-sports and e-game operation and management skills, but also computer, new-media management and business etiquette.
The graduates are expected to be able to design, organize, promote games or serve as anchors of games.
E-sports has become an emerging major not only in vocational schools, but also in universities.
The Shanghai Commercial Accounting School, another vocational secondary school in the city, is also planning to launch a similar program soon, while at Shanghai University of Sport, 21 students have started to become future e-sports commentators.
“With an increasing number of schools adding e-sports and government policy to support the industry, I’m convinced that there will be a lot of job opportunities,” a mother surnamed Chen said.
“But I think schools need to design their courses well and guide students carefully to avoid game addiction, especially in vocational schools where students are young and not so good at self-motivation.”
Chen said she hoped her 12-year-old son would learn computer skills in the future, which would enable him to have a larger scope of career choices, including e-sports design and artificial intelligence.
A visitor practices golf with a simulation system from the Zhonghua Vocational School.
Golf was another popular topic in this year’s expo.
Both Zhonghua Vocational School, a secondary school, and Shanghai Institute of Tourism, a higher vocational school, brought their indoor simulated golf-training systems to the exhibition center.
Many visitors took turns to “drive balls down the range.”
Li Peng, a teacher from the Zhongshan Vocational School, said it began the program in 2011, and graduates have become increasingly popular among employers.
“There is an increasing demand for service talent in the golf industry as it is more and more popular as a choice of sports, leisure, socializing and education in Shanghai,” he said.
According to Li, there are 18 golf courses in the city, and they need a large number of coaches, caddies, operators and managers. Some local schools are also offering golf classes, which adds to the demand for coaches.
Li said the school has 20 graduates every year, and most of them work for clubs with incomes well above 10,000 yuan (US$1,500) a month.
A student tries welding in a simulation machine at the booth of Yangpu Vocational and Technical School.
Two domestically developed simulation welding training machines with virtual reality technology from the Yangpu Vocational and Technical School also attracted many students.
Users wore special masks and held “soldering guns” while carrying out welding in virtual reality scenarios.
Xiu Chengyi, a teacher at the school, said such machines have been widely used in vocational schools to train students.
“Shanghai has released plans to modernize its vocational education by 2035,” he said. “When our concepts of vocational education are updated, we also need to update our teaching tools.”
A student tries tramcar driving with help of volunteers from the Shanghai Public Utility School.
At the exhibition area of the Shanghai Public Utility School, simulation systems display tramcar driving, gas pipeline installation and bus dispatch.
Fu Sheng, director of the school’s transport operation and management department, said the bus dispatch training system was the same as that used by local bus companies.
Students can learn to handle more than 100 emergencies in bus dispatch, such as roads blocked by flood, fire or bus breakdowns.
“With this system, our graduates can almost start working in bus companies immediately after graduation,” said Fu.
Fu also said that bus dispatch has become an increasingly popular job as working environment has been improved while workloads have been reduced by information technologies.
“Nowadays, there are more than 10 cameras and sensors installed on each bus to monitor real-time road conditions and situations in the bus," he said.
"All the information is transferred to the dispatch system to improve operation efficiency.
"Young students and their parents no longer consider it a low-end job anymore. Meanwhile, the pay for dispatchers has also been increasing, making the vocation more attractive,” Fu said.
