China's entry into a new era provides new opportunities for China-EU higher education, especially in business management.

First, Europe has experience in classified training of application-oriented talents, which meets the demands of China’s development in the new era. The quality of European applied talents is renowned all over the world and the training pattern has distinctive characteristics such as adapting to society and production needs, setting educational programs catering to the regional industrial layout, highlighting practice, and combining industry, academia and research. We can learn from the European experience to explore the classification management of higher vocational education, especially business management education. This is also in line with China’s proposal in 2014 of forming a top-level modern vocational education system by 2020 which adapts to development needs, deeply integrates production and education, synergizes secondary vocational education with higher vocational education, builds links between vocational education and general education and reflects the concept of lifelong education. In view of the status quo, China should strengthen the training of talents in various categories such as DBA, MBA and EMBA.

Second, Europe focuses on the combination of formal education and informal education, as well as the transfer from work experience to academic degrees. The diversified and multi-level talent training model is suitable for the needs of future talents in China. China has established a strict system in formal education, which, however, is still in the stage of introducing and distributing knowledge. It cannot meet the market demand for talents. China starts informal education relatively late and has attached inadequate importance to relevant research and investment. However, according to statistics, 80 percent of people's knowledge derives from informal education. China should focus on strengthening informal education and building a learning-oriented society by developing corporate universities, universities, scientific institutions and informal education.

Corporate universities carry out management and technology knowledge transferred by enhancing vocational education and fostering professional post-graduates and industrial doctorates. Knowledge generated in the practice of enterprises enters universities and research institutions which builds an improved systematic knowledge framework to expand the skills of students, enhance action learning, action research, and self-motivated learning. Then the systematic knowledge produced in the university can be applied to enterprises, thus forming a knowledge cycle. In addition to corporate universities and research institutions, the learning area should also include families, organizations and associations, as well as knowledge generated by informal education in the community. This constitutes a so-called learning scenario. The learning scenario is the foundation for building a learning-oriented society and advocates the lifelong learning and borderless learning.

Third, with more than 200 years of industrialization, most developed countries in Europe have advanced humanities management and vocational education which are more in line with China's demand for talent than the United States. Vocational education in Europe develops various methods such as Germany's dual-track system and Switzerland's 3+2 system. However, China's current vocational education system is not mature, with different evaluation standards and irregular training quality. Therefore, while introducing European vocational education into China, it is also necessary to establish a practical evaluation system that assesses the capability and comprehensive quality of students and talents. With the help of blockchain technology, each individual's practical competence manifested in the family, community, and organizations can also be included in the evaluation system. Ultimately, a comprehensive credit system is formed for students or talents. The establishment of such a system will be a valuable exploration for the current Sino-European higher vocational education, especially business management education.

Fourth, educational cooperation between China and the UK, the US, Australia and Canada has reached a saturation point, and European continent has become the best alternative education market. China and European continent can have more in-depth cooperation in education. Taking advantage of the resources of both sides, the two parties can jointly establish a China-Europe industry-academia-research center. The center can deepen exchanges and cooperation through the following means: organize various academic exchange activities and seminars; invite management experts and scholars from China and Europe to participate in discussions and promote communication; undertake consulting and communication work in management science; cooperate with top universities to share the latest knowledge of management science and provide relevant consultations for enterprises; integrate resources of both parties, jointly cultivate researchers, participate in various research projects and publish academic journals on management; hold business summits; promote humanities exchanges and business contacts and provide a platform for entrepreneurs to cooperate and exchange; establish a mobile doctoral center, conduct research and development with enterprises as a carrier, enhance personnel training, and build a bridge for high-tech talents and enterprises in China and Europe.

Fifth, the European continent offers Chinese students with best courses and environment of learning a variety of languages that are widely used in Africa and South America. China and Europe have achieved fruitful results in language training cooperation. The both sides have held several sessions of Sino-European language cooperation seminars. China has established 131 Confucius Institutes and 251 Confucius classes which have provided courses to as many as 620,000 students in the member countries of the EU. In China, a complete curriculum system composing of all 24 EU official languages has been set up in higher education institutes.

Yuewei Jiang is the chairman of Co-Progress Education Group. The author contributed this article to China Watch exclusively. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of China Watch.
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