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Digital Empowerment and Vocational Teacher Capacity Building under the Rural Revitalization Strategy: An Empirical Study and Three-Stage Progressive Model

Author(s)

Chong Li*

Affiliation(s)

Shanxi Finance & Taxation College, Taiyuan, China *Corresponding Author

Abstract

During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period of China, vocational education has been further established as a core element supporting the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy. Concurrently, with the advanced development of artificial intelligence technology, the empowerment of vocational education development via digital means has emerged as a critical factor driving the vocational education teaching workforce toward professionalism, precision, and innovation-oriented development.To further investigate and analyze digital empowerment technologies and the construction of vocational teachers' competency teams under the rural revitalization strategy, this study takes the vocational education teacher training programs in 46 key assistance counties (formerly key poverty-alleviation counties) of Shanxi Province as the empirical research objects. It comprehensively adopts methodologies including questionnaire survey, in-depth interview, and quantitative data analysis to systematically examine the competency structure, training demand characteristics, and professional development improvement paths of vocational education teachers in China against the backdrop of the rural revitalization strategy.The research findings indicate that three inadequacies exist in the current competency development and training system of vocational education teachers in China. First, vocational education teachers demonstrate significant deficiencies in digital teaching competency and the ability to align with the needs of rural industries. This is primarily manifested in the insufficient current capacity for developing digital teaching resources, the relatively weak capability in designing school-enterprise cooperative teaching projects, and the difficulty in supporting the further development of regional rural industries at the present stage. Second, the existing teacher training system is disconnected from practical development. The current training focuses more on the dissemination of traditional theoretical knowledge, while the integration of practical links that can support the development of key rural industries remains relatively inadequate. Third, the application of digital technology in the existing vocational education teacher training system has not yet formed a systematic framework, and the scenarios of digital technology empowerment for rural supporting industries in the respective regions require further expansion. Additionally, further research and analysis reveal that the digital empowerment of vocational education teacher teams can be further enhanced through a three-stage development mechanism of "cognitive enlightenment - resource development - integration of industry, academia, and research". This development mechanism can further reconstruct the traditional teacher training system, thereby realizing the precision-oriented development of teachers' competencies. Accordingly, this study proposes a three-stage progressive model for improving teachers' competencies through digital empowerment. This model divides the competency development of vocational teachers into three phases: "digital cognitive enlightenment phase - localized teaching resource development phase - in-depth integration and application phase of industry, academia, and research". These three phases exhibit a sequential development trend in teachers' competency development and realize a closed-loop competency improvement path throughout the entire vocational education career. The construction of the three-stage development model for vocational education teachers provides new insights and practical guidance for further optimizing the vocational education teacher training system in rural areas of China, enhancing the capacity of vocational education to serve regional industries, and promoting the high-quality development of vocational education.

Keywords

Rural Revitalization; Vocational Education; Digitalization

References

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