Deng Yingting
ABSTRACT
In Dongguan, strengthening the internationalization of vocational education is not only the due meaning of the “to speed up the construction of high-quality education system” proposed in the 20th report, but also an urgent move to promote Dongguan to achieve the largest livelihood project goal. Although the internationalization of higher vocational education in Guangdong Province has made some achievements, there are some problems, which affect the internationalization of higher vocational colleges in Guangdong Province. Therefore, this study took three vocational colleges in Dongguan City, Guangdong Province, China as an example and assessed the implementation and optimization of international exchange and international cooperation in higher vocational colleges in order to promote their development of internationalization. This study adopted a descriptive mixed approach utilizing quantitative and qualitative techniques and used two questionnaires in collecting data from the selected participants. The findings show that the participating colleges demonstrate a great extent of implementation and engagement of international exchange and cooperation as assessed by both student-participants and teacher-participants. It was also found out that there is no significant difference in the assessment of the extent of implementation of international exchange and cooperation between the student-group and the teacher-group. When examining the impact of individual profile variables on the extent of engagement in international exchange and cooperation, students’ gender and teachers’ age do not show significant differences in the extent of engagement in international exchange and cooperation, but students’ department/college, year level and teachers’ gender, highest educational attainment, involvement in the international exchange do have a notable influence. The level of optimization of international exchange and cooperation received “very high” and “high” ratings from students and teachers respectively. These findings underscore the pivotal role of international exchange and cooperation not only in students’ and teachers’ own prospects and developments but also in colleges’ future, especially for private schools.
Keywords: Higher vocational colleges, international cooperation, international exchange