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Creative Education 2013. Vol.4, No.7, 470-473 Published Online July 2013 in SciRes (http://www.scirp.org/journal/ce) http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ce.2013.47068 Copyright © 2013 SciRe s . 470 Study on the Problems Existing in the Employment Education for College Students in China’s Independent Colleges and Corresponding Countermeasures* Dajiang Wang, Qixin Zhu, Yin Lin Oujiang College, W enzhou University , Wenzhou, China Email: 21298154@qq.com Received May 10th, 2013; revised June 11th, 2013; accepted June 18th, 2013 Copyright © 2013 Dajiang Wang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. In the face of the increasingly severe employment situation, the role of employment education of inde- pendent colleges is becoming more and more important in solving students’ employment problems. Dur- ing the development process, however, the current employment education for students in independent colleges is still imperfect in five aspects: The understanding of the concept of employment education is inadequate, the courses set for employment education is not sufficient, the team construction for employ- ment education is not enough, the objects of employment education are not fully motivated, and the envi- ronment of employment education is not well created. This situation requires independent colleges to proceed from their actual situation and actively take efficient countermeasures, so as to further improve the effectiveness of the employment education for students in independent colleges. Keywords: Independent Colleges; Employment Education; Problems; Countermeasures Introduction In 2011, Notice of the State Council on Doing Well in Work of University Graduates’ Employment was issued and clearly points out that “a better work of university graduates’ employ- ment is an important measure to promote economic develop- ment and social harmony” (State Council No 16, 2011). Inde- pendent colleges, as important components of China’s higher education system, are playing a noticeable role in both culti- vating the talents and solving the problem of graduates’ em- ployment. Facing the severe situation, employment education carried out by independent colleges can be an efficient way to relieve employment pressure and to solve this problem, which also has great significance for the developments of independent colleges themselves. Necessity of the Employment Education for Students in Independent Colleges As important components of Chinese higher education sys- tem, independent colleges have their development history far shorter than that of regular institutions of higher education and are still not highly recognized in the society, which makes em- ployment problems even more serious for their students. Em- ployment education for students is an efficient way to fix the employment problem. Therefore, it appears to be particularly necessary for independent colleges to carry out the employment education for their students 1. To adapt to the development of real society With rapid development in the real society, the requirements for talents raised by employing units are becoming higher and higher. Influenced by the traditional concept of talents in the society, employing units often proceed from the “education background” when they select talents and habitually recruit talents from some famous schools or those colleges and univer- sities they trust or have close relations with. At the same time, independent colleges were established not long ago and have limited social influence, and the quality of their graduates has not been checked and recognized by the society. For these rea- sons, students graduating from independent colleges are often in a disadvantageous position in the fierce talent competition at the moment, which leaves a severer employment situation for students in independent colleges. Employment education car- ried out in an independent college is aimed to cultivate stu- dents’ lifelong survival ability and quality, which is of great significance for improving stude nts’ a bil ity to choo se a jo b, and which is also a measure necessary to actively adapt to the de- velopment of real society. 2. To meet the development of independent colleges them- selves Facing the increasingly severer employment situation, insti- tutions of higher education are paying more and more attention to the vocational guidance work for their graduates. However, such guidance work in most institutions only stays at the sur- face or is confined to the guidance for a certain employment stage, which makes the employment education narrow in objec- tive with no systematicness and perspectiveness. Besides, the content of employment education is monotonous and inflexible. The vocational guidance is not scientific and systematic, unable *Fund project: Scientific Research Project, Department of Education, Zhe- j iang province (Y201226256). D. J. WANG ET AL. to guide students according to their personal characteristics. These problems also exist in independent colleges and are even more serious in some aspects. Therefore, independent colleges should adopt good points and avoid shortcomings when carry- ing out the employment education and guide students according to their actual situation to give full play to their characteristics, thus promoting the colleges forwards a higher level of develop- ment. 3. To meet the employment development of students in the future Students in independent colleges are mostly contradictory combinations, which are manifested in the fact that they don’t have solid academic basis, but, most of them have strong point s, extensive hobbies and active minds. They don’t have high tar- gets but have strong practical abilities. Because of these char- acteristics, some students in independent colleges mentally have a kind of misunderstanding. On the one hand, “they don’t think they are winners of the National Matriculation Test, which left them with more disappointment and helplessness when com- pared to those who had entered in regular universities” (Zhang Liang, 2012), which is the cause that they would loss confi- dence when facing the employment competition. On the other hand, some students’ expectation for employment is too high because they have paid expensive tuition fees and they expect more in return. Some students even pin their hope on their rich and superior family conditions and make no basic preparation for their employment. As a result, the comprehensive quality and ability of students in independent colleges are insufficient and their employment competitiveness is not strong. That in- dependent colleges carry out effective employment education for students according to students’ characteristics plays an im- portant role in promoting students’ comprehensive quality and ability and is an important means of improving students’ em- ployment competitiveness. Problems Existing in the Process of Employment Education for Students in Independent Colleges In recent years, the employment education for students has already being a common view in numerous institutions of hi- gher education, and independent colleges even consider it as an important means of improving students’ comprehensive quality and ability, cultivating students’ ability to adapt to the require- ments of real society, and mitigating their employment pressure. Nonetheless, the employment education for students in inde- pendent colleges is still at the development stage and there are still some problems in the process, which would have negative impacts on the effectiveness of employment education. 1. The understanding of the concept of employment educa- tion is inadequate. Compared with state-run schools, independent colleges have fewer state funds. Besides, the different student recruitment si- tuations of independent colleges also lead to the situation where they have different understanding of and attach different level of importance to the employment guidance courses for students. The employment education is simply understood as the educa- tion of employment skills and the cultivation of students’ em- ployment and career consciousness as well as the education of professional ethics and professional ideals are overlooked. The inadequate understanding of the concept of employment educa- tion makes most employment education work stay at the sur- face and the employment education for college students also basically stays at the guidance on the skills of choosing a job. Consequently, many students come to know that they still have a lot of knowledge and abilities to learn when they are graduat- ing, which also directly increases the difficulty of their em- ployment. For example, Luo Zhuhua et al. took 542 juniors of an independent college of Hunan Province as the test samples for investigating the “time statistics of career planning”. The results show that “29.52% of the samples begin their career planning till the third year of their college lives, and another 28.04% have still not start the career planning up to this inves- tigation” (Luo Zhuhua & Chen Xi, 2010) 2. The courses set for employment education is not suffi- cient. Due to the limited understanding of employment education, independent colleges are not scientific when setting employ- ment education courses. This is mainly manifested in the fol- lowing aspects. Firstly, most schools do not set employment education courses continuously and only incorporate employ- ment education into the courses for graduates. In these courses, teachers simply introduce some employment skills to students, which cannot basically improve students’ employment ability. Secondly, the special identity of independent colleges makes them dependent on the teaching resources of their Alma Mater when carrying out the employment education. Especially in the setting of teaching courses, independent colleges completely copy their Alma Mater’s setting of majors. Their courses are single and there are no brand majors that conform to their own conditions. At last, the unscientific setting of employment edu- cation courses and the insufficient understanding directly result in the excessively abstract positioning of teaching objectives, which cannot guide the actual problems relating to employment and cannot offer help for graduates in terms of employment skills. 3. The team construction for employment education is not enough. The key to guarantee the effectiveness of employment edu- cation of an independent college lies in the quality of the tea- ching staff of employment education. Therefore, it is particu- larly important to cultivate a contingent of teaching staff who are adept at professional knowledge, steadfast in mind, upright in daily behavior and rich in employment practice. This is the new requirement for the quality of employment education tea- chers raised by independent colleges under the new situation, and is also required to further promote the employment educa- tion progress and the development of the colleges themselves. However, the current situation shows that, a large part of teach- ers of many independent colleges are employed form senior universities, and the smart part is introduced from other place. Yet, most of the introduced teachers are young and lack of teaching experience and scientific research ability (Xu Huimin & Chen Feng, 2012). Meanwhile, teachers are not willing to volunteer to participate in practical education, which severely influences the effectiveness of employment education. 4. The environment of employment education is not well created. The environment of employment education is also an impor- tant factor that influences the effectiveness of employment edu- cation. The environment of employment education mainly in- cludes internal environment and external environment. Internal environment mainly means the school environment of employ- ment education, namely how much attention school teachers and students pay to the employment education. At present, Copyright © 2013 SciRe s . 471 D. J. WANG ET AL. many independent colleges do not take employment education seriously and have not truly realized the important role of em- ployment education in solving employment problems for col- lege students. Consequently, independent colleges make no vi- gorous efforts to create a favorable environment for employ- ment education, and their employment education is not conti- nuous and expandable in both time and space. External envi- ronment mainly refers to the environment of employment edu- cation outside schools, namely how much the society or other schools advocate employment education. Since the employment education starts late in China and the employment education in independent colleges starts even later and is not fully developed, the social recognition of independent colleges is not high and the social environment of employment education is not so good. 5. The objects of employment education are not fully moti- vated. After going through the setback in the college entrance ex- amination, some students in independent colleges are likely to be unconfident and often let things be without making any ac- tive efforts. This undisciplined and self-abased mentality gives rise to a series of bad consequences. At the same time, students in independent colleges usually have superior family conditions and strong self-awareness. When facing new things, they often proceed from their own standpoint or immediate interests, dis- dain the things not catering to their preferences and have no motivation to study. Besides, with the invisible increase in em- ployment pressure and employment education teachers’ inabil- ity to provide effective advice for the objects of employment education due to their own defects, some students gradually lose confidence and patience in employment education and be- come far less motivated in learning. Countermeasures for the Future Develo pment of Employment Education for Students in Independent Colleges At present, employment education carried out in colleges has become a new option for solving such problems for students. Nonetheless, the effect of such employment education in inde- pendent colleges is often less than satisfactory. Therefore, as to the above-mentioned problems existing in independent colleges’ employment education, it is particularly important for indepen- dent colleges to actively explore some effective measures that are favorable for the development of employment education in future. 1. Build up a correct concept of employment education Employment education is an integral part of college educa- tion and runs through the whole process of college education. Setting up a correct concept of employment education is a re- quirement not only for employment education teachers, but also for the objects of employment education. The correct concept of employment education requires teachers to change their nar- row concept, fully realize the important role of employment education in the education for students, and strengthen stu- dents’ comprehensive quality. This is manifested not only in the teaching of employment skills, but more in the cultivation of students’ employment consciousness and entrepreneurship and the increase in the education of career planning, professio- nal ethics and professional ideals as well as professional laws and regulations for students, enabling students to master more comprehensive and practical survival and creation abilities re- garding employment. Meanwhile, it also requires the objects of employment education to pay full attention to employment, constantly improve their own comprehensive quality in the pro- cess, and thus increase their social competitiveness. 2. Improve the scientificity and standardization of employ- ment education courses The ineffective employment education in many independent colleges at present is largely caused by the unscientific setting of employment education c our se s. Employ ment ed ucation sho ul d start when students get enrolled in colleges rather than when they are graduating so that students can truly realize how to plan their future and fight for their targets in college years. Therefore, employment education courses should “improve em- ployment guidance mode and employment education system” (Li Ming, 2012), and shall should be continuous and systematic. Students should receive the courses as early as they enter col- leges. The law of physical and mental development of students should be taken into consideration when employment education courses are set so as to make students truly figure out the es- sence of employment education and thus lay a solid foundation for future employment. In addition, course setting should also reflect hierarchy and brand. Although the employment educa- tion starts late in China, its development speed is fast. If with no features in course arrangement, it is impossible to develop brand majors conforming to the development of independent colleges. Only by creating characteristic brand courses can in- dependent colleges occupy an advantageous position in the fier- ce competition. At the same time, independent colleges also need to make innovations to the talent cultivation mode of em- ployment education and make the target positioning for em- ployment education in conformity with actual requirements. 3. Strengthen the teaching staff construction for employment education Employment education is an important component of school education, in which process teachers play a vital role. As to the teaching staff, independent colleges should correctly handle the recruitment, training and management of teachers according to their own conditions. On the one hand, independent colleges should increase the recruitment standards of teachers, formulate a complete examination and evaluation system, set up a rea- sonable incentive mechanism and motivate teachers’ work en- thusiasm by approving and rewarding excellent teachers for their work, and encourage teachers to take an active part in so- cial practice and continuously accumulate practical experience. On the other hand, schools should strengthen the cultivation and management of employment education teachers, provide intensive training for teachers on a regular basis, invite or em- ploy excellent teachers from other schools to give lectures to constantly improve teachers’ learning ability, and systematical- ly assign teachers to study in appropriate enterprise s and realize the school-enterprise cooperation to create a good external net- work for students’ employment. 4. Create a favorable social employment atmosphere Due to the increasingly severer employment situation, the employment pressure faced by graduates is also on the increase. Nowadays, many college graduates are feeling confused, lost or fear at their graduation. Therefore, independent colleges need to carry out mental health education together with employ ment edu- cation. Creating a favorable employment atmosphere for stu- dents requires schools to pay close attention to social employ- ment trends and strengthen the publicity of employment infor- mation. Meanwhile, independent colleges should help graduates establish a correct employment attitude as soon as possible, Copyright © 2013 SciRe s . 472 D. J. WANG ET AL. Copyright © 2013 SciRe s . 473 foster the awareness of fair competition, and constantly im- prove their ability to meet challenges. 5. Integrate employment education and entrepreneurship edu- cation Now, to be self-employed becomes a new way for many graduates to solve their employment problems. The Party Cen- tral Committee has also introduced policies to encourage col- lege students to start their own business to promote the em- ployment. Therefore, when independent colleges carry out the employment education, it is necessary to integrate it with en- trepreneurship education to change students’ employment idea. In the process of carrying out employment education, indepen- dent colleges should consciously impart knowledge regarding entrepreneurship to students and organize various activities like social practice, discipline competition, business plan competi- tion, students’ scientific research and quality development trai- ning to create a campus culture with innovative and entrepre- neurial atmosphere, in which students can cultivate the ability to make innovations and start a business, thus increasing their employment rate when they graduate. For instance, “Zhong- yuan University of Technology is implementing the training mode containing three types of talents, as “learning-type, pro- fession-type, self-employed-type”. It established, cooperated with TAOBAO Company, the first Taobao Lab among univer- sities of Henan Province to satisfy the need of practical teach- ing reform. Some best lecturers of Taobao University are in- vited to teach knowledge about online shops. Meanwhile, stu- dents are encouraged to open online shops or start their own businesses, so as to cultivate excellent talents who do business on the internet.” (Guo Yahong, 2010). 6. Guide students to improve their quality comprehensively In the fierce social competition, the quality of graduates themselves directly determines whether they can obtain a job successfully. Therefore, graduates on the point of stepping into society need to improve their comprehensive ability by various means when they are still at school, which is very important. Firstly, they should constantly improve their professional qual- ity and select the appropriate major. Secondly, they should con- tinuously enhance their psychological quality to have the cour- age to face any difficulties and setbacks. Thirdly, they should continuously improve their competencies to be able to work as well as make research. Fourthly, they should constantly pro- mote their cooperation ability and understand the importance of teamwork, correctly handle interpersonal relationship, streng- then their accomplishment and expand their social circle. As an integral part of college education, employment education plays a leading role in improving the comprehensive quality of col- lege students. It needs to emphasize the significance of stu- dents’ comprehensive competitiveness all the time and create a dynamic environment for students to pursue comprehensive advancement. REFERENCES Guo, Y. H. (2010). Problems existing in the employment work in inde- pendent colleges in the new age. Journal of Xianning College, 9, 157-158. Li, M. (2011). Simple analysis of the employment work for students in independent colleges . 4. Luo, Z. H., & Chen, X. (2010). Investigation into the employment pre- paration of students in independent colleges. Theory and Practice of Contemporary Education, 1, 30-32. Notice on Further Implementing the Employment Work for Graduates of Regular Institutions of Higher Education (State Council No. 16) (2011). Xu, H. M., & Chen, F. (2012). Study on the employment ability of stu- dents in independent colleges and countermeasures. Pioneering with Science & Technology Monthly (4th ed.). Zhang, L. (2012). Primary investigation into the employment predica- ment of rural students in independent colleges. The Science Educa- tion Article Collects, 4. |