Gasgoo Munich- The talent-themed forum at the 2026 China Automotive Forum convened successfully on Monday. Peng Ding, dean of the School of Automotive and Aviation at Wuhu Vocational and Technical University, addressed deep-seated industry pain points, noting a widespread disconnect between academic training and corporate needs, a severe shortage of hands-on talent, and curricula that lag behind rapid industrial iteration. Drawing on years of deep collaboration between Wuhu and Chery, he detailed the implementation path for a city-level industry-education consortium, offering a replicable roadmap for cultivating targeted, professional talent in the auto sector.
Image source: 2026 China Automotive Forum
As the automotive sector accelerates its shift toward intelligence and electrification, demand for field engineers and technically skilled workers continues to climb. Yet traditional vocational education suffers from critical shortcomings: a divide between theory and industrial reality, loose school-enterprise collaboration mechanisms, and low adaptability of graduates. Rooted in Wuhu — a hub for China’s auto industry — Wuhu Vocational and Technical University launched its automotive programs back in 1997, coinciding with Chery’s inception. Since then, it has supplied nearly 10,000 professionals to the automaker, growing in tandem with the local automotive cluster.
To tackle these challenges, the Wuhu Economic and Technological Development Zone, Chery Automobile, and Wuhu Vocational and Technical University formed a national-level city-industry-education consortium. They innovated a "Nine Co" cooperation mechanism and a "Six Modernizations" construction model. Together, the school and enterprise are co-developing curricula, cultivating field engineers, building dual-qualified faculty teams, and researching corporate technical standards — effectively dismantling resource barriers between campus and factory. Guided by Party building initiatives, the program infuses Chery’s "Little Grass House Spirit" — a symbol of grassroots entrepreneurship — into the education system. It has also assembled over 1,000 automotive teaching modules to strengthen students’ industry awareness and professional literacy.
Addressing the common industry ailment of rigid public institution workflows and slow response times, the college overhauled its organizational structure. It implemented flattened, agile management, discarding traditional administrative office models for a corporate-style governance system. This ensures seamless alignment between teaching environments and actual automotive production zones. Leveraging two national-level teaching resource databases, the university has served over 400,000 online learners and fully opened its training equipment, faculty, and curriculum to the public, enabling a two-way flow of industrial and educational resources. This integration model won the first prize for teaching achievements in Anhui Province and has been repeatedly promoted by authoritative platforms like the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and People’s Daily Online.
On the ground, the university and Chery have jointly established a Field Engineer College and launched vocational undergraduate innovation pilot classes. The program innovatively integrates 1.5 years of on-the-job practice within a four-year curriculum, precisely matching talent output with automaker job requirements. Looking ahead, both sides plan to continue building innovation platforms and driving the conversion of research results, refining the "Wuhu Vocational Solution" to keep supplying adaptable, hands-on professionals for the high-quality development of the automotive industry.
