The “1+X” certificate system represents a pivotal reform in vocational education, designed to deepen the integration of industry and education and enhance school-enterprise cooperation. It plays an increasingly vital role in refining the vocational education system and propelling the “reform of teachers, teaching materials, and teaching methods.” This article, framed within the “1+X” certificate system, takes the drone pilot certificate as a focal point. It addresses the existing challenges in cultivating drone training talent for surveying and mapping within higher vocational colleges and proposes a targeted cultivation model. Using a specific institutional case as an exploratory basis, this discussion summarizes practical outcomes and future directions for talent development, aiming to facilitate the successful piloting of the drone pilot certificate, achieve quality improvement, and contribute to the advancement of “Double High-Level” college initiatives.
The issuance of “The National Implementation Plan for Vocational Education Reform” catalyzed the piloting of the “1+X” certificate system across higher vocational institutions. This system encourages students to obtain various levels of vocational skill等级 certificates relevant to their field of study during their academic tenure. The drone pilot license is one such certificate currently approved for pilot programs in surveying and mapping-related disciplines. With rapid societal and technological advancement, cutting-edge surveying technologies like drone operation are developing swiftly. As a key technical means for surveying, mapping, and geoinformatics disciplines, drone technology has disrupted traditional measurement methods, injecting new vitality into the industry and becoming a key development direction. However, a significant gap exists in the current market for skilled drone training professionals in surveying and mapping. Therefore, a pressing issue is how these disciplines can address talent cultivation and curriculum reform, effectively implementing the drone pilot certificate pilot within their programs.
The Significance of the Drone Pilot Certificate under the “1+X” Framework
The drone pilot is recognized as a new occupation within the high-tech sector. Since relevant authorities assumed management of assessment standards, the profession’s status has been further legitimized. Statistics indicate over a hundred higher vocational and forty-plus undergraduate institutions in China have established drone-related majors. This interdisciplinary, high-tech field faces substantial demand; reports suggest a need for hundreds of thousands of drone operation professionals in the coming years. As the primary base for cultivating technical skills talent, higher vocational colleges bear the critical responsibility of training individuals with solid surveying expertise and proficient drone operation skills through effective drone training.
- In designing talent cultivation plans, vocational colleges must conduct extensive industry research. Basing the integration of the “1+X” certificate system on societal demand allows institutions to gain a competitive edge in the drone sector.
- In the current wave of vocational education reform, comprehensive reforms in talent cultivation models are essential. The goal is to enhance the quality of graduates in geomatics, thereby boosting the program’s capacity for social service and contributing to institutional development plans.
- Implementing the “1+X” system provides a platform for reforming teacher education and teaching. It aims to continuously improve teaching teams, elevate instructional capabilities, and achieve success in both education and external service provision.
Current Implementation Status of the “1+X” Certificate System Pilot
1. National Deployment and Top-Level Design
To effectively implement the requirements, relevant ministries have issued documents and guidelines detailing the deployment and organization of the “1+X” certificate pilot work. This includes guidance on the development of assessment standards, management regulations, and operational procedures.
2. Meticulous Organization and Steady Advancement
Educational administrative departments have established specialized coordination bodies to manage the pilot work. A combination of industry evaluation and third-party assessment is employed to advance the system. Vocational colleges are encouraged to collaborate with industry experts and training/evaluation organizations to develop talent cultivation schemes that integrate certificates with curricula, reform course structures, and promote pilot credit bank systems.
3. Close Collaboration between Evaluation Bodies and Pilot Institutions
Evaluation organizations play a crucial role. They must ensure certificate standards align with industry skill requirements and maintain quality. This involves strict adherence to work criteria, conducting assessments for students, and training and certifying evaluators. Pilot institutions, in turn, must establish support mechanisms, provide policy incentives, and upgrade their laboratory and practical training facilities to support the skill等级 certification process effectively.
Challenges in Cultivating Drone Surveying and Mapping Talent
The development of the drone pilot “1+X” certificate should align with industry needs and program objectives. Analyzing difficulties in its implementation reveals several core challenges in current drone training at the vocational level:
| Challenge Category | Specific Manifestations |
|---|---|
| Mismatch in Teaching Resources | Insufficient theoretical foundation among some instructors affects teaching outcomes. Available textbooks often lack alignment with course objectives, focusing heavily on multi-rotor systems with repetitive content and lacking comprehensive materials on fixed-wing or helicopter platforms. |
| Scarcity of Teaching Resources |
|
| Inefficient Curriculum Scheduling | Drone courses are often placed as elective courses in later semesters, leading to insufficient student engagement and understanding. Adding relevant courses strains an already tight schedule for core and foundational subjects. |
Cultivation Strategies for Surveying and Mapping Talent under the “1+X” Certificate System
The “1+X” system is a significant innovation driving reforms in teaching management and talent cultivation. Based on the current state of drone training, the following strategies propose solutions for cultivating high-quality skilled talent through industry-education integration.
1. Curriculum System Construction
Based on the concept of “curriculum-certificate integration,” we derive a training approach combining vocational foundational courses with drone technology, aligned with both engineering surveying competencies and the drone pilot skill等级 certificate standards. This approach emphasizes:
- Solid Theoretical Foundation: Ensuring students have robust theoretical knowledge for long-term adaptability and innovative thinking.
- Updated and Novel Content: Requiring teachers to possess current knowledge and employ innovative teaching methods.
- Holistic Student Development: Fostering capabilities in self-directed learning, practical problem-solving, exploration, organization, management, and innovation.
Key actions include strengthening industry-academia cooperation to build better internship bases and accelerating experimental teaching reform focused on competency structures and creative thinking.
The integrated curriculum framework can be modularized as shown below, where $C_{core}$ represents core surveying courses, $M_{drone}$ represents drone-specific modules, and $X_{cert}$ represents the skill证书 specific content. The integration aims for:
$$ Final\ Competency = \alpha \cdot C_{core} + \beta \cdot M_{drone} + \gamma \cdot X_{cert} $$
where $\alpha$, $\beta$, and $\gamma$ are weighting coefficients determined by industry requirements, typically with $\beta + \gamma > \alpha$ in modern drone training programs.
| Module Type | Course Examples | Integration with ‘X’ Certificate |
|---|---|---|
| Vocational Foundation (Ccore) | Surveying Fundamentals, GNSS Principles, GIS, Photogrammetry | Provides underlying theory for drone data collection and processing. |
| Drone Technology (Mdrone) | Drone Flight Principles, Drone Operation & Safety, Drone Data Acquisition | Directly maps to practical skill requirements of the pilot certificate. |
| Certificate-Specific Skill (Xcert) | Regulatory Airframe Knowledge, Simulated Flight Assessment, Mission Planning Lab | Targeted training for the formal certification exam components. |
| Integrated Application | Drone-based Mapping Projects, Integrated Surveying Practice | Combines Ccore, Mdrone, and Xcert in real-world scenarios, cementing the “1+X” outcome. |
2. Course Resource Development
- Theoretical Components: Organize teaching teams to compile question banks based on the theoretical knowledge required for the drone pilot exam, integrating them into a certificate study resource repository.
- Practical Components: Utilize virtual simulation training centers. Employ flexibly-bound teaching materials co-developed by school faculty and enterprises, simulating real work scenarios for certification preparation.
- Blended Learning Resources: Create online + offline resources. Use information media to build interactive teaching platforms for teacher-student and peer interaction, enhancing teaching effectiveness in drone training.
3. Teaching Faculty Development
Cultivate “dual-qualified” teachers (with both academic and professional expertise) centered on the drone pilot certificate. Enhance faculty skills through study visits, enterprise internships, and training. Encourage collaboration between new and experienced teachers through performance and qualification assessments. Strengthen the teaching team by integrating enterprise part-time instructors. Implementation models include:
- Dual-Tutor System: In-school teachers handle theory; enterprise instructors lead practical sessions on assembly, debugging, etc.
- Industry Lectures: Company technicians deliver lectures on drone applications.
The effectiveness of teacher development $E_{td}$ can be modeled as a function of various inputs over time $t$:
$$ E_{td}(t) = \int_{0}^{t} \left( I_{theory} + P_{practice} + C_{collab} \right) dt $$
where $I_{theory}$ represents input from academic training, $P_{practice}$ represents hands-on industry immersion, and $C_{collab}$ represents collaborative peer learning.
| Development Focus | Action Plan | Expected Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Program Leaders | Deep training on “1+X” policy and certificate standards for top-level design (e.g., talent scheme formulation). | Accurate leadership in curriculum integration and reform. |
| Core Faculty | Participation in teacher enhancement projects and skill等级 standard training. | Improved ability to execute teaching, training, and assessment tasks for drone training. |
| Industry Practitioners | Increased recruitment of part-time teachers from enterprises or evaluation organizations. | Optimized team structure and enhanced overall practical teaching and training capacity. |
4. Promoting Teaching and Learning through Competition
Integrate annual intramural skills competitions, linking awards to academic credits to motivate students. Encourage broad participation in drone surveying skills contests, providing a comprehensive platform for skill enhancement. Adhere to the principle of “using competition to promote teaching, learning, reform, and development.” This approach advances holistic education and ideological-political elements in courses, implements teaching standards, and steadily improves talent quality. It fosters an ecosystem for continuous teaching quality improvement, enhances the level of teaching teams in areas like IT application and teamwork, and promotes the integration of education and training, book-certificate integration, and the “three-teacher reform.”
The improvement in student skill level $\Delta S$ from competition participation can be expressed as:
$$ \Delta S = k \cdot \left( \frac{A_{applied}}{A_{theory}} \right) \cdot \ln(1 + N_{comp}) $$
where $k$ is a constant, $A_{applied}/A_{theory}$ is the ratio of applied to theoretical knowledge used, and $N_{comp}$ is the number of competition experiences.
Implementation Strategies for Drone Pilot Certificate Development under “1+X”
1. Advancing Institutional Systems for “1+X” Implementation
- Reconstructing a “New” Talent Cultivation Scheme: Explore effective pathways for implementing the “1+X” system. Formulate institutional operating methods and assessment processes based on certification requirements. Establish and operate certificate assessment sites, organize training and evaluation, and set up corresponding management, supervision, and safeguard mechanisms.
- Building a High-Level Teaching Workforce: Cultivate master teachers, program leaders, and teaching experts. Focus on training program leaders on the new concepts of “1+X,” training core faculty through various projects, and recruiting industry part-time teachers to optimize the team structure for effective drone training.
- Innovating “New” Pathways for School-Enterprise Cooperation: Enhance multi-faceted cooperation with industry enterprises through order-based classes, work-study programs, job rotations, internships, and共建 off-campus training bases. Examples include sending young teachers for enterprise training and arranging student internships.
2. Revising Talent Cultivation Schemes to Achieve Book-Certificate Integration
Based on thorough analysis of the vocational skill等级 certificate standards, distill core job skills. Revise the talent cultivation scheme and course system to achieve organic衔接 between the “1” (diploma) and the “X” (skill certificate). Integrate the knowledge and skill points from the certificate into the professional talent cultivation scheme. Coordinate resources across the geomatics program cluster to build an “Post-Course-Competition-Certificate” educational model.
The integration efficiency $IE$ can be conceptualized as the overlap between the diploma curriculum set $D$ and the skill certificate requirement set $X$:
$$ IE = \frac{D \cap X}{D \cup X} $$
The goal of curriculum revision is to maximize $IE$, ensuring minimal redundant learning and maximal synergy.
3. Promoting the Construction of the Credit Bank
Using the drone pilot vocational skill等级 certificate standard as a benchmark, identify and enhance core job skills. Integrate the course system accordingly, refine the talent cultivation scheme, and link the outcomes to the credit bank. Establish a sound course framework for book-certificate integration that enables the recognition, accumulation, and conversion of learning outcomes, reflected in both the academic diploma and the vocational skill等级 certificate.
4. Building “1+X” Certificate Training and Assessment Bases
To promote “1+X” certificate development, focus on creating a multifunctional practical training base that integrates training, appraisal, skill assessment, production practice, and social and teacher training.
5. Further Enhancing the Practical Ability of Instructors
Guided by the needs of the drone pilot certificate and the “1+X” implementation, strengthen team building. Foster the “dual-qualified” quality of teachers, ensuring they internalize advanced vocational education concepts and exchange updated teaching and assessment methods. Support and encourage teacher professional development, boosting their enthusiasm and initiative for participating in engineering practice.
6. Enhancing the Social Service Capacity of Pilot Programs
“1+X” certificate development should actively undertake social responsibility by cooperating with enterprises in training. Increase the emphasis on training work, conduct demand-based training, implement order-oriented cultivation schemes, and mobilize the enthusiasm of professional teachers to engage in training activities. The social service output $SS$ can be related to the faculty’s practical skill level $F_{skill}$ and industry collaboration intensity $I_{collab}$:
$$ SS \propto F_{skill} \cdot \sqrt{I_{collab}} $$
This emphasizes that both high instructor competency and deep industry links are crucial for effective service.
Conclusion
The “1+X” certificate system constitutes a significant leap forward in China’s vocational education. Promoting the development of surveying and mapping programs in vocational colleges through the construction of the drone pilot certificate system aims to cultivate students whose skills meet enterprise demands. This involves gradually optimizing talent cultivation schemes, exploring the integration of relevant professional courses and drone-specific curricula into the certificate assessment framework. The ongoing implementation process must remain focused on revising talent cultivation schemes and curriculum reform, continuously optimizing the cultivation model, improving the pass rate for the drone pilot skill等级 certificate, and nurturing a cohort of practically capable, composite talent. This effort adds bricks and mortar to the “Three-Educator Reform” in vocational colleges and supplies the surveying, mapping, and geoinformatics industry with high-quality professionals proficient in drone technology, ultimately fulfilling the promise of high-quality drone training.