During this year's National People's Political Consultative Conference and Two Sessions, Zhou Yuan, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and founder and CEO of Zhihu, presented a proposal to promote the rapid development of new productive forces through the supply of high-quality skilled talents.
In December 2023, the Central Economic Work Conference clearly proposed to lead the construction of a modern industrial system with scientific and technological innovation, emphasizing the promotion of industrial innovation through scientific and technological innovation, especially the emergence of new industries, models, and driving forces through disruptive and cutting-edge technologies, and the development of new quality production forces. The source of new productive forces lies in technological innovation, the foothold lies in industrial upgrading, and the key factor lies in talent support. Accelerating the formation of new productive forces not only requires high precision and shortage of scientific and technological talents, but also a large number of high-quality technical and skilled talents, great country craftsmen, skilled craftsmen, etc.
In recent years, a large group of "new employees" have emerged in China's employment population, who have received higher education, possess scientific and cultural literacy, professional experience and skills, are engaged in advanced manufacturing and the tertiary industry, and reside in urban areas. Providing more targeted vocational skill enhancement services for "new employees" is an important engine to help China transition from a demographic dividend to a talent dividend, drive future industrial development, and form new quality productivity.
Therefore, Zhou Yuan proposed the following three suggestions:
Firstly, it is necessary to clarify the functional positioning and improve the lifelong vocational skills enhancement mechanism for the "new job seekers" group. This includes developing a scientific and systematic plan for lifelong training and development of vocational skills. The human resources regulatory department collaborates with the industry regulatory department, combining industrial structure adjustment and technological development trends, to do a good job in predicting the supply and demand of high skilled talents and training planning, aiming to promote the continuous learning of skilled talents and better adapt to changes in social needs through skill enhancement. In addition, we should promote the widespread application of vocational training models that complement academic education and skill training, and integrate offline education with online training. We should explore a long-term mechanism for adult vocational education and training aimed at society, enhance the pertinence and effectiveness of talent cultivation, and improve the lifelong vocational skills of workers.
Zhou Yuan told Securities Daily reporters, "When technology iteration is relatively fast, skills change quickly. Today may be a data engineer, tomorrow may become a Prompt engineer. In this context, the market can more accurately reflect employment needs, and skills can also make changes quickly.". So from this perspective, it is necessary to integrate academic education and skill training, as well as combine online and offline
Secondly, we need to strengthen policy guidance and mobilize social forces to build diversified vocational skills training carriers. Social vocational skills training institutions have advantages over universities and vocational colleges in terms of higher professional level, greater flexibility, highly consistent training and demand, and close cooperation with industries. Encourage and guide private enterprises with conditions to offer vocational skills training, encourage enterprises to participate in education in accordance with the law and enjoy corresponding rights, optimize the corresponding registration process, enable educational enterprises to focus on professional construction, build a diversified training carrier mainly composed of vocational colleges, technical colleges, vocational skills training institutions, and industry enterprises, fully leverage the main role of enterprise vocational skills training and the advantages of training resources in colleges, Establish a sound mechanism for co construction and sharing of vocational skills training, promote the cultivation and supply of scarce talents, and enhance the employment level and supply of high-quality skilled talents in society.
Thirdly, highlight technological innovation and create a new paradigm for a modern online vocational skills training system. Artificial intelligence technology has brought more innovation opportunities to the skills training industry, promoting the implementation of more diverse application scenarios in the skills training industry. Through the application of artificial intelligence technology, the vocational skills training industry can achieve a more personalized, flexible, and efficient teaching mode, providing students with a more accurate learning experience. At the same time, teachers can also use AI tools to improve teaching effectiveness, better meet the learning needs of students, and promote the development of skill training to a higher level. Encourage and guide training institutions and teachers to actively adapt to and master AI technology, enhance their professional abilities and educational literacy, leverage the development of artificial intelligence technology and AI big models, continuously explore innovation, empower the skills training industry to achieve transformative development, and promote the efficiency and effective supply of high-quality skilled talent cultivation.
Regarding the empowerment of artificial intelligence technology and AI big models in the skills training industry, Zhou Yuan believes that everyone can unleash their imagination and also need to be full of confidence.
Zhou Yuan told the Securities Daily that "the entire Internet is regarded as a tool, which can help people share knowledge, exchange information, and even complete online transactions, entertainment and other functions. AI plus the Internet can become a new tool. In a sense, AI is a new empowerment of the original Internet media form. The most attractive aspect of technology is its ability to expand human abilities, just like cars expanding human legs and wireless broadcasting of adult voices. New technology will also become a new type of wheel in empowering people
"When new technologies come, many Internet companies that have achieved large-scale user coverage have the opportunity to achieve change on the basis of human capabilities, new forms of production materials, and tool capabilities," Zhou said.