In the depths of winter in Jinan, Shandong, where biting winds carry a chill, the workshop at the China National Heavy Duty Truck Group (CNHTC) Global Training Center of Jinan Vocational College presents a scene of bustling activity. Thirty international trainees from Africa are gathered around a truck chassis with intense focus, following the instructions of their Chinese trainer as they examine the intricate structures of the engine and transmission. "This is the core node for power output; torque parameters must be strictly aligned during disassembly and assembly," explains He Qing, a training instructor at the college. These trainees, comprising technical workers and automotive maintenance technicians from various countries served by CNHTC's overseas market division, are actively translating classroom theory into hands-on practical experience at the training stations. In this "Ingenuity Classroom," a joint initiative of Jinan Vocational College and CNHTC, the African participants are not only mastering the skills of disassembling, maintaining, and repairing heavy-duty trucks but are also deeply integrating "Chinese standards" with "African needs."
In recent years, against the backdrop of the Belt and Road Initiative, Jinan Vocational College has closely aligned with the "Double High-Level Plan" for vocational institutions, adopting a strategic vision of building a strong education system. Guided by the principles of "integrating industry and education, aligning education with industrial output, and fostering school-enterprise collaboration," the college continuously expands its international partnerships and innovates cooperative content, using vocational education to support the "going global" strategy of high-quality production capacity. Leveraging Shandong Province's "Ban-Mo Academy" initiative, which focuses on serving international industrial cooperation primarily through school-enterprise partnerships with "vocational skills + Chinese language" as core components, the college plans the development of "Ban-Mo Academies" based on the overseas layout plans of premium industries.
From the banks of the Yellow River to the shores of the Chao Phraya and the Blue Nile, Jinan Vocational College has partnered with companies such as BYD COMPANY, Suzhou Zhongcai Construction Co., Ltd., and Shandong Cultural Tourism Group to conduct cross-border collaborations with overseas institutions like the Bali Tourism and International Business Institute and Bangkokthonburi University in Thailand. Together, they have co-established three "Ban-Mo Academies" in Indonesia, Thailand, and Ethiopia, and have collaborated with other vocational colleges in Shandong to establish additional academies in Mongolia and Guinea. This forms a "1+1+N" collaborative education model, comprising "the domestic host institution Jinan Vocational College + a Chinese overseas enterprise + multiple domestic and foreign schools and upstream/downstream service organizations."
In the development of the "Thailand - Ban-Mo Academy (BYD)," the college and enterprise jointly created bilingual courses in new energy vehicle technology and established cross-border teaching and practical bases to serve BYD's Southeast Asian industrial chain. This achieves a seamless transition where "enrollment equates to employment, and graduation equates to being job-ready," enabling the school-enterprise partnership to break through barriers and help Chinese enterprises overcome talent bottlenecks overseas by addressing both the "language barrier" and "skills barrier" simultaneously.
The college consistently uses Chinese language and culture as a bridge, driven by the dual engines of cultural immersion and skills training, to develop "Chinese Plus" resources unique to Jinan Vocational College. It has created the "Integrative Chinese" series of international bilingual textbooks for "Mechanical Manufacturing Technology," which have been exported to 16 countries. An online course resource for "Introduction to China" has been launched and promoted on the "Xueyin Online" platform. Cultural elements are integrated into the "Ban-Mo Academy" curriculum to showcase the distinctive features of Chinese vocational education and the allure of traditional Chinese culture to overseas students. A hybrid digital teaching platform, operating both online and on-site, has been established, enabling global live broadcasts and recorded replays of "Chinese Plus" courses. This digital empowerment breaks geographical constraints, allowing cloud-based classrooms to cross national borders and effectively broaden channels for international people-to-people exchange.
Through online group exchange activities such as "Chinese Bridge" and "Cloud Tour of Jinan," the college conducts "vocational skills + Chinese language" training, disseminating China's voice and telling China's stories well. It has enrolled and trained a cumulative total of 280 full-time international students and successfully passed the "Quality Certification for International Students in Higher Vocational Education (Initial Certification)" administered by the China Education Association for International Exchange, becoming the first and only higher vocational college in Shandong Province and Jinan City to obtain this quality certification.
In the construction of the "Ban-Mo Academies," the college adheres to building a foundation with skills, using competitions to promote teaching and strengthen technical abilities, and is committed to cultivating technical and skilled talents with international perspectives and cross-cultural communication skills. In 2023, Chinese and foreign faculty and students won a silver medal in the "Drone Maintenance and Application" category at the inaugural World Vocational College Skills Competition. This valuable medal represented not only the best result for Shandong Province but also a new breakthrough for the college in international competitions. In 2024, Shuha, an international student from Bangladesh, teamed up with Chinese student Meng Weitao from the Intelligent Manufacturing Department to win one second prize and one bronze medal in the international finals of the "Aircraft Maintenance" category at the 2024 BRICS Skills Competition.
Technical achievements co-developed through the school-enterprise collaboration at the "Thailand - Ban-Mo Academy (BYD)," such as the "BYD Dolphin One-Stop Teaching System," have been successfully promoted to Thai institutions like Bangkokthonburi University and were applied for the first time in the 2024 World Vocational College Skills Competition, helping Bangkokthonburi University win a bronze medal in the international group for the "Automotive Fault Diagnosis and Repair" competition. In 2025, international students won a bronze medal in the "Intelligent Manufacturing Equipment Integration Technology (Multi-Axis CNC Direction)" category at the BRICS Vocational Skills Competition. Using high-level competitions as a platform, the college builds broader international exchange and practical platforms, assisting international students in China to grow into versatile talents possessing both professional competence and a global vision.
The college has developed and exported over 50 items, including vocational education standards, textbooks, resources, and equipment, focusing on majors such as Industrial Mechanics, Mechatronics Technology, New Energy Vehicle Technology, and Tourism Management. The "Ethiopia - Ban-Mo Academy (China National Building Material Group - CNBM)" conducted in-depth research into the actual needs of overseas Chinese enterprises, developing and continuously optimizing teaching resources accordingly. It designed progressive modular content, flexibly iterated teaching models, and established a "Three-Module Progressive" curriculum system, integrating virtual simulation technology to enhance practical training efficiency. The "Thailand - Ban-Mo Academy (BYD)" developed bilingual course resource packages covering fields like new energy vehicle technology by constructing a "Chinese + Skills + Culture" curriculum system. The collaborative school-enterprise effort built a digital teaching platform, achieving "synchronization of teaching content with enterprise standards and alignment of training equipment with production sites," leading to significant improvements in teaching efficiency and practical ability. The "Indonesia - Ban-Mo Academy (Shandong Cultural Tourism)" continues to explore the "3+1" articulation training model for the Tourism Management major, where the initial draft of the bilingual Chinese-English textbook "Guide to Bali," co-authored by both institutions, has made phased progress.
In July 2024, the first training session at the college's "Ethiopia - Ban-Mo Academy (CNBM)" was successfully completed, with key local staff from Sinoma International Ethiopia Subsidiary, the DANGOTE project, and the LEMI project participating in the "Chinese + Vocational Skills" training, which received an enthusiastic response. "'The Ban-Mo Academy' is committed to cultivating more outstanding technical talents and injecting new momentum into Ethiopia's industrial development. We believe that through this platform, China and Ethiopia will achieve deeper exchanges and cooperation in various fields such as technology and culture," said Meng Jiangtao, General Manager of Sinoma International Ethiopia Subsidiary, affirming this Shandong vocational education brand at the academy's unveiling ceremony and expressing anticipation for deeper future school-enterprise cooperation. In 2025, the second phase of the Ethiopia project training continues to advance.
The established teaching base of the "Ban-Mo Academy" in Thailand has undertaken new energy training for 1,800 participants commissioned by the Thai Ministry of Education. Online expansion has included the "Chinese + Tour Guide" course in Indonesia, covering 120 Chinese and Indonesian students, achieving a multidimensional expansion from one-way output to two-way mutual learning and from physical bases to online courses. The college hosted the first session of the "Specialized Training on Pathway Selection for Vocational Education Going Global and Enhancement of International Communication Capacity" for the Ministry of Education's Vocational Education Center and organized the annual meeting of the Southeast Asia Vocational Education Overseas Schooling Alliance. Through high-level expert lectures and in-depth exchange seminars analyzing the practical experience of benchmark cases like the "Ban-Mo Academy," the college's vocational education going global case was selected as an outstanding international exchange case by the China Vocational Education Association in 2025, significantly enhancing its capacity to serve the Belt and Road Initiative.
Today, Jinan Vocational College has become an indispensable force within Jinan's automotive industry landscape. The BYD Benchmark Industry College, the CNHTC Global Training Center, and the SAIC-GM-Wuling Technical Training Base stand in succession. From new energy vehicle maintenance and assembly to intelligent connected vehicle testing, and from hydrogen energy component R&D to cross-border technical services, every practical training project here resonates in sync with industry demands.
Looking ahead, the college will leverage its own advantages and characteristics to further deepen the collaborative mechanism between government, enterprises, and schools. It plans to build comprehensive practical training bases overseas, implement a "Localized Theory + Standardized Practical Training" cultivation plan, integrate industry and education to nurture skilled craftspeople, and construct a new ecosystem for collaborative talent development involving government, enterprises, and schools. Relying on cloud-based platforms such as international virtual simulation laboratories and cross-border synchronous classrooms, the college aims to build an integrated transnational collaborative system for "teaching, learning, and research," using digital empowerment to expand its reach and create a new paradigm for cloud-ground collaborative teaching. Simultaneously, by partnering with Chinese enterprises to establish cross-border internship bases for on-the-job training and implementing a progressive path of "Language + Major + Internship," the college will steadily advance existing "Ban-Mo Academy" projects, actively explore new initiatives, and prepare to establish overseas "Ban-Mo Academies" in countries like Vietnam, building new hubs for incubating international talent.
As Yin Yuanhua, Secretary of the College's Party Committee, stated, "Jinan Vocational College will continue to act as a 'ferryman' for vocational education, escorting Chinese enterprises in their deep exploration of overseas markets and continuously injecting vocational education momentum into the construction of the Belt and Road Initiative."
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