Chengdu Finance & Trade Vocational School, a prestigious school

Chengdu Finance & Trade Vocational School, a prestigious school in pursuit of excellence, is blissfully located in a place where the elegant Mount Emei and secluded Mount Qingcheng stand sacredly, the Huanhua Creek and Jin River have cultivated a brilliant culture, and the Wide and Narrow Alleys and Qintai Road preserve traces of ancient sites.

The school, a model for reform and development of national secondary vocational education, aptly specializes in modern services as Chengdu is a “capital of tourism” and “city of commerce and trade”. Mr. Wang Jianping is now Secretary of General Branch of the CPC and President of the school.Located in downtown Chengdu, a famous Chinese historic and cultural city once known as “Jinguan City”, the school has three campuses at Zaozi Alley, Nanxun Alley and Guangrong Road North respectively, collectively covering more than four hectares (or 60 mu). With exquisitely unique landscape and a strong culture, the school is an ideal place for self-cultivation and acquiring practical skills.

The school was established after combining two vocational high schools, i.e., the former Chengdu Finance & Trade Vocational High School and the former Chengdu Xingzhi Vocational School. The former Chengdu Finance & Trade Vocational High School, founded in 1957, was formerly known as the No. 32 High School, which was converted in o a vocational school and renamed Chengdu Business Vocational School under the auspices of Xiao Ju, former Deputy Secretary of Chengdu Municipal CPC Committee and Fang Jiaxiang, former Vice Mayor of Chengdu and led by the Municipal Office of Finance and Trade in 1983. In 1985, the school was renamed Sichuan Province Chengdu Finance & Trade Vocational School, and jointly run by an expanded team of entities, with newcomers including the Municipal Taxation Bureau, Chengdu Industrial Equipment Installation Company and Chengdu Travel Services. In 1996, the school was licensed as a secondary vocational school. In 1999, it was combined with Sichuan Province Chengdu Xingzhi Vocational High School and officially named as it is. The school was one of the first schools transformed to train technical professionals and skilled workforce for Chengdu and Sichuan. Leaders including Zhou Ji, former Minister of Education and Huang Yanrong, former Vice Governor of Sichuan Province, once visited the school for multiple times.

The school boasts a constellation of masters and renowned teachers. There are currently 233 full-time teachers, including more than 130 masters and famous teachers of Chinese cooking, certified public accountants, national model teachers, provincial master teachers, backup municipal academic and technical leaders, municipal top-level principals, municipal discipline leaders, district education experts, municipal outstanding young teachers, municipal outstanding head teachers, and municipal renowned teachers. There are 11 “teaching studios” at municipal, district and school levels. The faculty has had 420 education reform results presented or awarded at national, provincial or municipal-level meetings, and 43 results published on journals at or above municipal level. They have compiled more than 40 general textbooks and e-textbooks for national secondary vocational schools as chief editors, chief reviewers and participants.

Rooted in tertiary industries, the school operates at multiple levels and in multiple forms, including five-year integrated model college degree programs, secondary vocational education and short-term training. The school set up five specialty categories, i.e., finance and accounting, commerce, computer, tourism, and catering. There are three provincial-level key (featured) specialties, i.e., e-commerce, culinary art, and computer, as well as two municipal-level key specialties, i.e., advanced star hotel management and finance and accounting.

Following the educational philosophy of Huang Yanpei, a famous Chinese educator, the school is committed to cultivating elite skilled professionals. Over these years, students participated in various skills and art contests at national, provincial and municipal levels, winning many awards. At four National Culinary Skills Competitions for Secondary Vocational Schools, the school took home nine gold medals and 15 silver ones, with its total medals ranking at No. 1 nationwide at one competition and total gold medals ranking at the first place nationwide at another. Our graduates have been well-received by employers for their superb skills. Many graduates quickly rose as core employees.

Over the decades, the school has fostered a strong culture, solid foundation and core values, with “virtue, competence, action and innovation” as school motto, “professional dedication, love for students, generalist education and good instruction” as teaching spirit, “enjoy learning, think for oneself, sharpen skills and act ardently” as learning spirit, and “wholesome and harmonious progress together” as school ethos. In recent years, to realize the goal of establishing the school as a top domestic secondary vocational school with distinct characteristics, the school has made “Every little helps” and “pursuit of excellence” its school-running concept, established the guiding principle for talent cultivation of “services development as purpose and employment facilitation as orientation”, and set out the goal of giving equal weights to personal growth and academic progress and cultivating high-quality, skilled intermediate- and high-level technical professionals for the modern services sector. These moves have shaped a good pattern of “students with special talent, a faculty with expertise and a school with characteristics”. The school now has 4,600 students enrolled for diploma education and more than 4,000 short-term trainees.

We adhere to and cement group-based operation. The school, heading the Chengdu Computer Vocational Education Group, leads 35 member schools within the Group to conduct inter-school and school-enterprise cooperation with 23 businesses, which means work-study combination, make-to-order (MTO) education, and industry-school-research integration. The school is member of National Steering Committee for E-commerce Vocational Education and Instruction, member of China Chain Store & Franchise Association (CCFA), Vice President of Sichuan Restaurant & Catering Entertainment Industry Association, Council Member of Sichuan Provincial Tourism Association (SPTA), and Vice President of Chengdu E-commerce Association (CEA). By aligning with local modern commerce, financial services, travel services, and other industries, the school is committed to deepening the reform of work-study combination talent cultivation model, and promoting MTO models of various types. In partnership with many colleges and universities, the school strives for alignment between secondary and higher vocational education and establish a “flyover” for professionals training. The school has helped and guided the construction of a dozen secondary vocational schools in southwestern China. In doing so, the school has established itself as a vocational education group that incorporates urban-rural interaction, quality resources extension, inter-school coalitions, and synergic development.

We adhere to brand operation. The school has firmly fostered the brand awareness of “Nothing but the best is good enough” and “Race to the top”, and energetically promoted the brand culture of “Every little helps” and “pursuit of excellence.” First, we strive to build specialty brands. Built on five provincial and municipal key (featured) specialties, the school has established superior specialty groups and specialty brands, and set up a computer training base and Sichuan Food R&D Center with distinct characteristics and prominent advantages, driving up overall school competence. Second, we strive to create a moral education brand. Built on the education concept of “healthy, happy and confident personal growth and academic progress for all”, the school has introduced the “3Q7S” management concept for modern enterprises and strengthened “life, survival and living education” to cultivate students through various cultural, sports, artistic and technical activities and practices, with a view to training high-quality professionals with modern career concepts and good professional ethics. Third, we strive to create a faculty brand. By implementing the master plan of “prestigious school and renowned teachers complement each other” and building a strong faculty through such measures as “teaching studio” projects, we do our best to build a high-quality “dual-qualified”, “learning” and “research” faculty. Fourth, we strive to create a students brand. Aiming at “personal growth and academic progress for all”, we strive to train our students in o practical, high-quality modern services professionals with “good conduct, physical and mental health, cultural qualities and superb skills.”

We adhere to modern management. Following the concepts of “every little helps” and “fine management”, we value notional and institutional innovation in education and pay attention to high-quality intensive development. Focusing on developing sound school bylaws and systems, we’ve further strengthened and reformed in-house management for scientific and standardized practices to build a modern vocational school. Following a flat, vertical campus management approach under a specialty group development framework and a quality-benefit-oriented “project responsibility system”, we've “maximized school resource utilization and optimized education and instruction.” By increasing transparency in school affairs, we’ve established an open, fair school running mechanism and strengthened democratic supervision and management procedure.

We adhere to international reach. Over these years, we've partnered with Hong Kong-based Huaxia Foundation, Singapore-based Tyndale Education Group (TEG), Hong Kong Vocational Training Council (VTC), Hong Kong Small and Medium Enterprises Association (HKSME), and Hong Kong-based Lee Kum Kee, among others, to train professionals on an MTO basis, promote a school-enterprise cooperation model that allows “two-way interaction and win-win symbiosis,” and actively facilitate exchange, training, reciprocal visits and educational resources sharing between faculties and students. We've explored and accumulated a wealth of approaches and experience in training practical professionals aligned with international standards through a wide range of measures, including enrolling in overseas students, hosting Sichuan food and tea-making training programs for overseas students, sending teachers out for cultural exchanges under the Belt and Road Initiative, and sending faculty and teachers to Europe and Australia, among other places, for study tours. Such intensive development has drawn the attention of sister schools across the country and even overseas peers. In recent years, we've received social groups, faculties and teachers for exchange and training visits from 13 countries and jurisdictions including France, Thailand, Brazil, Australia, the U.S., South Korea, the Czech Republic, and Indonesia, and hosted a range of exchange events including the U.S. Consulate Culinary Exchange, Taiwan-Sichuan Culinary Exchange, and Norway Seafood Production Exchange. All these exchanges and events helped boost our international cooperation and influence.

Looking back, we’ve flourished with great momentum, making big splashes. Going forward, we will, as always, adhere to our mission and responsibility of cultivating skilled and technical professionals, facilitating economic progress, and navigating vocational education reform, writing new brilliant chapters in pursuing its glory and dream.