Chongqing- Recently, WorldSkills Competition 2022 Special Edition sent news that Li Xiaosong, a 22-year-old student from Chongqing, won the gold medal in the photoelectric technology competition. This is the first occasion for China to claim the gold medal.

The competition is widely viewed as the "Olympic Games" for skills. Its special editions replaced the canceled WorldSkills Shanghai 2022, with 62 events staged in 15 countries and regions from September to this month. 

The only player completed all tasks

To prepare for the WorldSkills Competition 2022 Special Edition, Li, a Chongqing College of Electronic Engineering student, endured highly intensive training for over 400 days and nights.

"Photoelectric technology is a new competition event, and there is no experience from the predecessor to learn from," said Li. "This project has wide applications in daily life, including installing and maintaining outdoor LED screens and lighting systems in smart homes."

The only direction of training was the technical standard documents and a set of sample questions provided by the host. Under the guidance of experts, Li extended the training amount to 8 times.

They are adding in quantity and difficulty while subtracting in time during the training. If the competition time is 3.5 hours, Li required himself to complete it within 2.5 to 3 hours so that he would reserve enough time to check and deal with emergencies.

In the design of the lighting environment project, many players were caught unprepared the host temporarily shortened the competition time from 3.5 hours to 3 hours, which made the technical standards more difficult. Li was the only player who completed all installation tasks and won the gold medal.

Development of vocational education in Chongqing

The 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China pointed out that speeding up the construction of a powerhouse of manufacturing, education, talent, and digitization and striving to cultivate more masters, artisans, and high-skilled talents.

Skilled talents are essential in supporting "Made in China" and "Created in China," as well as Chongqing's high-quality development. Li's story is a microcosm of Chongqing's efforts to create the sound "Made in China" business cards with global influence.

In recent years, the Chongqing government has attached great importance to skilled talents and released the "Bayu Craftsman 2025" action plan in November 2021. The project aims to cultivate skilled talents for key industries in Chongqing, including pillar industries, high-tech manufacturing, modern services, and modern agriculture. 

The action plan stated that Chongqing strives to cultivate 5 million skilled and 1.6 million high-skilled talents by 2025. Especially in the digital field, the number will be two million skilled talents and 500,000 high-skilled talents.

Besides, Chongqing strives to establish vocational education cooperation with 50 countries and regions and co-cultivate 5000 high-skilled talents. A total of 20,000 high-skilled talents urgently needed for industries were cultivated to construct the Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle.

"We will make every effort to promote the 'Bayu Craftsman 2025' action plan and cultivate more high-quality craftsmen to meet the need of industry development," said a related person in charge of the Chongqing Human Resources and Social Security Bureau.

Statistics show that Chongqing has 4.94 million skilled talents, and the high-skilled talents have reached 1.55 million, accounting for 31.5% of the total, which keeps the leading position in western China.

(Tan Jingyue, as an intern, also contributed to this report.)