China News Service, Shanghai, September 26 (Reporter Xu Jing) The 26th is the last competition day of the 48th World Skills Competition. This international competition known as the "Skills Olympics" is coming to an end, and what is left to the city of Shanghai is not just medals and memories of the competition. More importantly, Shanghai is promoting the international competition standards of the World Skills Competition (hereinafter referred to as the "World Skills Competition") to go out of the competition field and transform them into teaching standards and corporate job standards, continue to release industrial momentum, and cultivate high-skilled talents for the development of new-quality productivity.
The profound technical foundation has long been integrated into the urban background of Shanghai. Statistics show that the total number of skilled talents in Shanghai reaches 4.12 million, including 1.51 million highly skilled talents. There is 1 highly skilled talent in every 3 skilled workers. Focusing on the three leading industries of integrated circuits, artificial intelligence, and biomedicine, Shanghai has targeted talent cultivation. Whatever the industry needs, skill training will be aimed at.
This year's World Championship has added new categories such as drone systems and smart security technology, reflecting the changing times in the content of skills: skills are no longer limited to manual operations, but also test human-machine collaboration, system debugging and solution optimization capabilities. Taking advantage of the opportunity of hosting the competition, Shanghai has opened up the transformation chain of "events-training bases-schools-enterprises" and promoted the implementation of the World Championships evaluation system.
A number of vocational schools have become the forefront of the transformation of competition standards. Shanghai Nanhu Vocational and Technical College is the Chinese training base for digital interactive media design projects. The school has opened a "5G+XR holographic virtual training" class, which relies on immersive digital scenes to restore the real working conditions of the enterprise and train students in equipment debugging and parts maintenance capabilities. As the Shanghai training base for the World Championship UAV System Project, Shanghai Zhongqiao Vocational and Technical University implements "industrial establishment", restructures professional clusters around intelligent manufacturing and low-altitude economy, integrates competition technical specifications into daily teaching, and relies on productive training to provide young technical talents for high-end manufacturing. During the 2026 World Skills Conference, the school also signed a partnership with the University of Media Design and Computer Applications in Berlin, Germany, to jointly cultivate international technical talents with both digital creativity and engineering practical capabilities.
Using competitions to promote education and competitions to promote production, Shanghai continues to improve the industry-education integration system where government, administration, enterprises and schools collaborate. At present, Shanghai has 93 high-skilled talent training bases, of which enterprise bases account for 44%; it has created 14 municipal industry-education consortiums and 15 industry-industry-education integration communities. At the same time, Shanghai continues to improve the "middle-higher-undergraduate" vertical through-training channel. Hundreds of through-professional points will start recruiting students in 2026. Nearly half of secondary vocational students will be able to enter the through-training system and continue to reserve industrial skills reserves.
Outside the competition field, the concept of the World Championship has also been integrated into the Shanghai employee skills competition system. This year's employee vocational skills competition in Shanghai is based on the competition model and concept of the World Skills Competition and the National Competition. It will carry out "2+6+X" competitions around artificial intelligence trainers, CNC machine tool assembly, adjustment and maintenance workers, intelligent connected vehicle assembly, operation and maintenance workers, etc., to help build a knowledge-based, skilled and innovative workforce.
Shanghai also continues to expand the growth channels for skilled talents. With the implementation of the "New Eight-Level Workers" system, highly skilled talents such as world competition winners and senior technicians can directly apply for settlement, continuing to enhance the professional dignity of skilled talents.
"Cultivation and development of new productive forces require both high-end scientific research talents and a large number of high-level technical skills talents who can promote the application of technology." Han Fang, president of Shanghai Zhongqiao Vocational and Technical University, said that digital technology is an ability amplifier. Complex on-site analysis and judgment, multi-system collaboration, and non-standardized problem solving are still inseparable from human control. Vocational education must continue to cultivate compound skilled talents and help workers adapt to technological iterations.
Chen Hongmin, counselor of the Shanghai Municipal People's Government and deputy director of the Industry Research Institute of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, believes that the World Competition provides a set of quantifiable and transferable capability evaluation standards. When competition standards are transformed into job and teaching standards, cities will have the "pricing power" for skilled talents. The agglomeration of highly skilled talents will attract the implementation of advanced manufacturing and digital industries, forming a virtuous cycle of two-way empowerment of talents and industries.
From the competition platform to the production line, Shanghai is continuing to transform international advanced skills standards into industrial momentum, allowing more young people to achieve success in life with their skills, and continuously improving the city's industrial level with the "thickness" of skilled talents. (over)
