Sharing his joy was 28-year-old Wisit Saenklue, one of the first graduates of the TBVTC's Luban Workshop in Thailand, the first of its kind to be launched by a Chinese college overseas.
He told his teachers that he'd recently found a new job at a local company that pays him $1,160 a month, thanks to the knowledge and practical skills he mastered in China.
Saenklue said that his first job had already been "better and higher-paid than those of my counterparts" and that since graduating, his new offer was also much better.
He offered a snapshot of the possibilities created by the vocational training program launched by vocational and technological colleges in China.
Last month, good news came from the Advanced Technical School for Maintenance Technology in Cairo.
Mohamed Ahmed Ali Baioumy, a teacher working at the school, said the Egyptian Ministry of Education had announced that it was bringing the "three plus two" education model of the Egypt Luban Workshop program into its national education system during an online conference.
In 2022, reports of fresh successes kept pouring in. The first Luban workshop in Africa - the Djibouti Luban Workshop - sent off its first group of graduates who enrolled in 2019. They have become high-quality railway professionals.
Tianjin has also sped up the construction of the Luban Workshops in Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. This move will help cultivate more technicaland skilled personnel in local areas.
The first Luban Workshop in Central Asia, the Tajikistan Luban Workshop, was unveiled in November, 2022. As of that time, Tianjin had built 21 Luban workshops in 20 countries spanning three continents: Europe, Asia and Africa.
Notably, the first World Vocational and Technical Education Development Conference (WVTEDC) kicked off in North China's Tianjin, from Aug 19 to 20. The two-day event gathered 500 representatives from international organizations, domestic and foreign government agencies, enterprises, research institutions and vocational colleges in the beautiful port city, with an additional 300 attending online.
During the 2022 World Vocational College Skills Competition, a warm-up activity of the WVTEDC, about 1,000 contestants from 70 countries and regions presented their latest techniques regarding equipment manufacturing, electronic information, transportation, finance and trade, as well as energy power and materials.
The Luban Workshop originated from the "National Modern Vocational Education Reform and Innovation Demonstration Zone", and was jointly established by the Ministry of Education (MOE) and Tianjin in 2015.
It is committed to cultivating technical and skilled talents in partner countries familiar with Chinese technology, Chinese craftsmanship, and Chinese products.
Accordingly, the Luban Workshop focuses on both academic education and vocational training. It adopts the teaching mode of the Engineering Practice Innovation Project (EPIP), and uses advanced teaching equipment to aid instruction.
Chinese teachers and technicians often teach skills to local teachers in partner countries, who are also eligible to come to China for on-the-spot exchanges.
At the same time, the Luban Workshop adopts inter-school cooperation, school-enterprise cooperation and inter-government cooperation to form a set of eight first-level indicators, 26 second-level indicators and some specific observation points.
The Luban Workshop project has been included in the "Double High Plan" and "Action Plan for Quality Improvement and Optimization" by the MOE. Tianjin has also set up a special fund to encourage qualified vocational colleges to set up Luban workshops overseas on a pilot basis.
The way of going global is getting wider and wider for vocational education in Tianjin, and across the nation on the whole.