Beijing learns from Bottrop Vocational College

The "Fengtai Vocational Education Center School" in China shows great interest in dual system vocational education and training. The exchange programme is in high demand also amongst college students in Bottrop.

The "Fengtai Vocational Education Center School" in faraway China uses the Bottrop Vocational College as a model. The staff at the Beijing-based institution wants to learn how the highly esteemed German dual system of vocational education and training works at that college. Of course, the college in Bottrop is to likewise profit from the co-operation. If nothing else, the college students' great interest in the first exchange programme evidences how interesting the contact to stakeholders in the ambitious economic power China is from the Bottrop point of view.

Now, after the ink has dried on the contractual agreement, the task at hand is to fill the co-operation with life. Some 15 students and three teachers will embark on a ten-day trip to China in September, headed by the Bottrop Deputy Headmaster Klaus Wiegert.

As Guido Tewes, Headmaster of the Bottrop Vocational College, explains, the Chinese school provides full-time, school-based training in a wide range of different fields from catering, film/TV, computer science, automotive technology to teaching and education.

He and his colleagues Marion Knuth and Astrid Hildenbrand had previously undertaken a scouting trip to visit the partnering school with its nine sites in the Beijing city district of Fengtai, which has a population of more than two million.

Yet the Chinese apprentices do get to do practical work as well: for example, at the school's own workshop or inside the aircraft fuselage that stands in the school for training prospective flight attendants. "They are very performance-oriented, yet have a different notion of lessons compared to ours", Marion Knuth reports. The staff in Beijing aim at adopting many features from the college in Bottrop. "On the other hand, they are also prepared to make an effort to ensure that their German guests will benefit from the exchange", Knuth outlines the prospects.

The idea is that the vocational college students from Bottrop participating in the exchange should be able to experience lessons at the "Fengtai Vocational Education Center School" that match their respective course to the best possible degree. In addition, a sightseeing programme including the Chinese Wall awaits them. "We take it that accommodation will be provided at a residential hostel on the school's premises", says the German college headmaster Guido Tewes. Accommodation and board are provided by the hosts. Communication will take place using the English language – or, where required, by gesticulation.

Once the selection of participants has been completed by the 30th of January, they will establish a China working group. They will jointly prepare their sojourn in Beijing, for example, also by practising to eat with chopsticks, and they will put together a programme for the visit of the Chinese delegation in Bottrop. "It would be nice, of course, if our guests could get to visit a business", says Tewes. The students and teachers from Beijing will arrive as early as in August.

Even earlier, in May, the first Bottrop-based teachers will travel to China: the chefs Joachim Riedel and Karsten Knühmann will complete the "Asian Cuisine" advanced training course for teachers in Beijing. In turn, two Chinese representatives from the catering department will travel to Bottrop. Tewes adds that the contact between the two schools had been facilitated by the August-Everding-Realschule middle school, which likewise has a Chinese partner, the "Beijing DaCheng School".


Source: Article in the German newspaper Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, waz.de, revised by iMOVE, May 2015