In the afternoon of November 9, the final session of “2023 UNEVOC Network Coaction Initiative” was successfully held in Liuxiandong Campus, which brought the seminar to a perfect end. “2023 UNEVOC Network Coaction Initiative” is a key event of UNEVOC Network in 2023, which was organized upon our application to UNEVOC Network this year, as one of the only two approved programs in the world.

Funded by UNEVOC Network, and organized by Asia-Africa Center at SZPU, the seminar r took both online and offline forms, where more than 60 leaders, teachers and experts from five partner colleges and universities, including National Technical University of Pakistan, Preah Kossomak Polytechnic Institute of Cambodia, Temasek Polytechnic of Singapore, University Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, and Zhejiang Technical Institute of Economics, were invited to attend online and carry out capacity building activities on the digital transformation of vocational education. Before that, three sessions had been successfully held, covering topics such as “Theories and Methods for Digital Transformation of Vocational Education”, “Development and Transformation of Vocational Education Majors and Courses”, and “Digital Education Technology, Digital Pedagogy and Open Education Platform”, including “Discussion Results Sharing”, “Expert Report”, “Group Discussion” and other modules.

The conference was themed by the case sharing seminar and the closing ceremony. The participating colleges and universities shared their own digital transformation cases, showcasing the solutions and advanced experience of different countries: Zhong Zhuoya, a teacher from Asia-Africa Center at SZPU, introduced the digital transformation program of the university, and our experience in ten aspects such as talent training, digital governance, teaching reform and digital technology innovation based on the logical framework and concept. Among them, the highly mature practice of industry-education cooperation at SZPU left a deep impression on the participants; the National Technical University of Pakistan presented the challenges it faced in the process of implementing digital transformation, such as change resistance, skills gap, data management and privacy, cost and resource constraints, etc., and introduced its response strategies in respect of digital technology, such as data analysis, and building a virtual learning environment and integrated information system; Preah Kossomak Polytechnic Institute of Cambodia showed how the vocational education management information system, implemented by the Ministry of Education of Cambodia, was data-driven to empower vocational college students for employment and skills training; Temasek Polytechnic of Singapore introduced its “self-governance”, “connection” and “expert knowledge” models, based on the profound insight into the future career trend, and actively using artificial intelligence, teacher training, management optimization and other means to prepare students well for the future work. University Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia introduced initiatives to enhance the learning experience and digital capabilities of teachers and students, including digital academic majors in specific fields, bachelor’s degrees in technical and vocational education, MOOCs, micro-certificates and various high-impact education practices, and also proposed the Edu 4.0 program of multi-institution cooperation in Malaysia to enhance digital education capabilities; Zhejiang Technical Institute of Economics introduced the construction of digital application systems and digital resource systems, and showed how the data and campus private cloud technology could empower all kinds of management work in colleges and universities.

At the end of the session, Olivier Presume, Director of Secretariat of UNEVOC Network, gave a concluding speech for the seminar. He sincerely thanked our university for strong support in organizing “2023 UNEVOC Network Coaction Initiative”, and expressed appreciation for the fruitful academic results of the seminar. He also said that these good practice cases should be shared with the global vocational education community through UNEVOC Network. The successful holding of the seminar fully demonstrated our research results of chair on digitization in vocational and technical education, and our dominant position accumulated in the digital transformation of vocational education, and also demonstrated the strong vitality of the regional cooperation of countries in the Asia-Pacific region for the digital transformation of vocational education. (Pan Liucheng, Asia-Africa Center)