On April 13^th, the Masonry Competition (for Secondary Vocational Colleges) of the 8^th Shanghai “Starlight Contest” Vocational Colleges Vocational Skills Competition was held in the Yangpu Campus of SUCC. There were 8 contestants from 3 secondary vocational schools in Shanghai participated in the Competition. At the opening ceremony, Guo Hongtao (the vice president of SUCC) delivered an opening speech. Cui Liqiang (the Party secretary of Shanghai Occupational Skill Testing Authority) visited the competition site to guide the work. The instructors from the participating colleges also attended the site. The opening ceremony was hosted by Zhang Hong (the Party Secretary of the School of Civil and Transportation Engineering).

The Competition was jointly hosted by the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission, the Shanghai Human Resources and Social Security Bureau, the Shanghai Education Development Foundation and the Shanghai Private Education Development Foundation. The Research Office of the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission, the Shanghai Academy of Educational Sciences, the Shanghai Occupational Skill Testing Authority, and Shanghai Science & Technology Museum jointly organized the Competition. The competition was also preparing for the 46^th World Skills Competition (Masonry Project).

Before the Competition, the chief judge Xi Jinhu (the vice chief engineer of Shanghai Construction No. 2 Group) read the rules and precautions. The Masonry Competition was divided into four modules, and the content and requirements of the Competition were close to the World Skills Competition (Masonry). The contestants build interior and exterior walls, partitions, fireplaces, smokestacks and other building competitions through masonry, stone, glazing or terracotta. The skill requirements for the contestants in the Competition mainly included drawing reading, lofting and measuring, project construction according to the drawings, manual cutting or mechanical cutting technology for different materials, positioning and laying the bricks to the correct positions, and surface treatment of seaming according to the specifications.

The whole schedule lasted for three hours. The competition order, including the lot-drawing of the competition teams, the supervision of the competition process and the registration of the competition results, was maintained by a third-party supervisor appointed by the Education Commission to ensure the fairness and justice of the Competition.

The Skills Competition aimed at promoting and improving students’ professional and technical abilities, presenting the professional knowledge and skills learned by the students in a familiar, fast and precise form, and realizing the purpose of promoting learning and teaching with the competition and combining leaning and practice. It played a positive role in promoting the professional skills of SUCC students, the teaching level of teachers and the standardization of training courses.