To implement president Xi Jinping's proposal at the 13th BRICS Summit to establish a BRICS Vocational Education Alliance, hold a vocational skills competition, and build a platform for exchanges and cooperation between vocational schools and enterprises of the five countries, the opening ceremony of the 2022 BRICS Skills Competition was successfully held in Xiamen on the evening of May 24, which is  sponsored by the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, jointly hosted by he Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security of the People's Republic of China, BRICS Business Council, and Xiamen Municipal People's Government.
Fang Jun, Deputy Director of Department of International Cooperation and Exchanges from Ministry of Education attended and addressed the opening ceremony online via video. Liu Xingchang, Deputy Director of Department of Vocational Capacity Building, Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, Liao Huasheng, Deputy Mayor of Xiamen Municipal People's Government, Liu Zhenying, Chairman of China Section of BRICS Business Council Skills Development Working Group, Huang Feng, Deputy Director of Office of Xiamen Leading Group for BRICS PartNIR Innovation Center and Hong Jun, Deputy Director of Xiamen Education Bureau attended and addressed the opening ceremony. Mr. Frederico Lamego Soares, Chairman of Brazil Section of BRICS Business Council Skills Development Working Group; Ms. Alina Doskanova, Chairman of Russia Section of BRICS Business Council Skills Development Working Group; Mr. Arun Kumar Chandel, Senior Head WorldSkills India, National Skill Development Corporation; Ms. Sherrie Donaldson, representative from South Africa Section of BRICS Business Council Skills Development Working Group and Ms. Cui Xueyan, Executive Director of China Section of BRICS Business Council Skills Development Working Group attended and addressed the opening ceremony online via video. In addition, more than 600 guests, representatives, experts and competitors from BRICS countries participated in the opening ceremony online and offline, attracting 2.1 million online viewers from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
Focus on Future Technical Skills
175 Competition Teams from Home and Abroad Online

The competition focuses on key areas such as intelligent manufacturing, digital economy, new industries, new business models and new technologies, and bid for major international competitions from the aspects of competition regulations, organization and evaluation. In the next three days, 55 international teams from Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa and 120 Chinese teams will compete online in the same English competition environment. The competition will play a positive role in cultivating future technical talents, promoting future skills development and sharing best practices in vocational education among BRICS countries.

2022 BRICS Skills Competition is divided into two stages: Kick-off Stage and Final Stage, 28 skills in total. In order to ensure the overall competition level and the smooth implementation of the online competition for the home and abroad competition teams, the online skills training camp for each skill have been held successively before the competition, through which competitors can get familiar with the competition schedule, further improve the technical skills, and promote communication among the youth of BRICS countries.
 
Break the Time and Space Barriers 
Build a Technical Skills Exchange Platform

All three skills of this opening competition was held online, which breaks the time and space barriers of the international distance competition, provides a new model for international humanities exchanges and cooperation, builds platforms for exchanges and cooperation between vocational schools and enterprises of five countries, and opens a new path for international integration of industry and education during the pandemic by innovating competition mode and optimizing competition technical means.

Modern information technology has been used to improve competition methods and realize online and offline competition scenes transformation, effectively promoting technological progress in related fields. For example, Rail Vehicle Technology(RVT) realizes 1:1 matching of online competition content with offline competition through virtual simulation technology, which builds the operation scene consistent with the actual situation through the three-dimensional simulation technology. With online training videos and experts operation guidance, standardized operation procedures and automated assessment technology are integrated, and international interaction design is adopted to enable competitors at home and abroad to compete on the same stage in different places.
 
Training By Competition
Work Together to Open Up High-Quality Education

2022 is the BRICS “China Year”, the international competition is held under the BRICS mechanism under the chairmanship of China, which received guidance from government departments of BRICS countries. The competition design will be optimized on the basis of integrating the characteristics and resources of vocational education of each country to enhance the capacity of teachers and students from vocational schools in innovation, coordination, organization and cooperation, enrich the content of exchanges and cooperation between vocational schools and enterprises, and promote the cultivation of high-quality international skilled talents among BRICS countries.

Promote the Harmonization of BRICS Standards 
Co-participate in Group Skills Standards Formulation and Curriculum Development

In order to better integrate competition and talents training, the competition organizer, China Section of BRICS Business Council Skills Development Working Group and the executive organizer, BRICS Academy of Future Skills Development and Technology Innovation (Xiamen) learned from previous experience and the competition characteristics to organize chief experts, judges and experts from participating schools to take part in the standards formulation and curriculum development for international teams of the BRICS Skills Competition based on the test descriptions, test project, assessment procedures, competition platform and technical support of the three major skills. It has promoted the coordination and unification of future skills standards among BRICS countries, and laid a solid foundation for the formation of BRICS skills certification systems and the issuance of skills passports in the future.

According to the reports, since the launch of the BRICS Innovation Base, in the field of talents training, Xiamen has given full play to the advantages of modern and international vocational education system and promoted cooperation in talents training based on “Specialization”. This year, BRICS Academy of Future Skills Development and Technology Innovation (Xiamen), a key landing project targeted-introduced by BRICS Innovation Base, is responsible for the implementation and host of 2022 BRICS Skills Competition, which plays a positive role in promoting base construction and high-quality cooperation and exchange among BRICS countries. Meanwhile, BRICS Innovation Base has conducted 17 sessions of online and offline talents training and exchange activities around topics BRICS and BRICS plus countries are interested in, covering 28 countries and attracting more than 120,000 participants, so as to excavate and cultivate future technical skills and international talents for people-to-people and cultural exchanges for Xiamen’s development, and to provide skilled talents support for industrial economic development and BRICS pragmatic cooperation.