Henok Amanuel Emiru, a 25-year-old Ethiopian, never anticipated that his first foray into international skills competition would culminate in him securing the top accolade in Africa. In a grueling test that lasted over 11 hours, Emiru adeptly switched between tasks, meticulously cutting pipes according to blueprints and nimbly maneuvering up and down a ladder -- all while quickly shuttling between circuits and computers. When the results were finally announced, his instructor, Jiang Jiang, the Chinese head of the Ethiopian Luban Workshop, leapt to his feet in the audience and exclaimed: "Excellent! The young man has truly excelled." This year, Emiru, now a teacher at a vocational school in Ethiopia, participated at the Belt and Road International Skills Competition hosted in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality in late June. Prior to the event, he was trained by Jiang at the Luban Workshop in Ethiopia, where he delved into novel vocational skills standards and familiarized himself with advanced intel ligent machinery. He also accompanied Jiang to Tianjin University of Technology and Education (TUTE) in the north of China for final warm-up training. "Having learned about smart home installation equipment, I no longer felt like a stranger to the tools, modules and operational demands of the competition. This provided me with immense assistance and confidence," Emiru said. Jiang believes that the Luban Workshop serves not only as a platform for Sino-Ethiopian collaboration, but also as a cradle for nurturing vocational and technical talents for Ethiopia. Jiang, who serves as the Chinese liaison officer for the Ethiopian Luban Workshop, has dedicated over a decade to his overseas role. Through his efforts, the Luban Workshop has helped cultivate many high-level vocational education teachers for East African countries. In Ethiopia alone, more than 1,500 local students mentored by Jiang are now spread across various vocational colleges. "The Luban Workshop is a paradigm of international vocational education cooperation that bolsters the overall diplomatic landscape, supports the Belt and Road Initiative, and deepens cultural exchanges," said Li Li, director of the vocational education department of the Tianjin Municipal Education Commission. Over the past decade, the international outreach of Chinese vocational education has primarily focused on providing hardware and teaching equipment -- as well as deploying teachers abroad. Today, leveraging the Luban Workshop, TUTE is sharing China's globally-oriented and locally-adapted Engineering Practice and Innovation Project (EPIP) teaching model with educators worldwide, while also establishing localized operational teams, and has garnered international recognition, according to TUTE. Since the inception of the Ethiopian Luban Workshop in 2021, it has nurtured many high-tech talents in fields such as industrial robots, industrial control and sensors. Previously, Ethiopia had suffered from a significant lack of vocational and technical education and training in the se fields. Thankfully, the robot education system established by the Luban Workshop in collaboration with local entities has filled this gap, according to Jiang. "From Ethiopia to Tianjin and then to Chongqing, Emiru has acquired new skills, made new friends and set a goal to learn Chinese and further his studies in China," Jiang said, adding that although the skills competition has concluded, the era of "skills cooperation and mutual development" has only just begun for international vocational education. "Once, a senior Ethiopian official stated at the Vocational Education Development Conference in Tianjin that while African vocational education had lagged behind the rest of the world, their determination to catch up was formidable," Jiang said. "With us and the Luban Workshop, they will definitely catch up!" Source: The Namibia News Agency