Chery and Wuhu Vocational College Launch City-Level Industry-Education Alliance to Pioneer Targeted Auto Talent Development

On July 22, 2026, at the Talent-themed Forum of the China Automotive Forum, Peng Ding, Dean of the School of Automotive and Aviation at Wuhu Vocational & Technical University, highlighted critical challenges currently facing the automotive industry, including a disconnect between university education and enterprise needs, a shortage of hands-on skilled talent, and outdated institutional teaching models that lag behind rapid industrial evolution. To address these issues, Wuhu Economic and Technological Development Zone, Chery Automobile, and Wuhu Vocational & Technical University have jointly established a national-level city-region industry-education alliance. This collaboration implements a “Nine Joint” cooperation mechanism and a “Six-ization” development model. The partners co-develop curricula, cultivate on-site engineers, build a dual-qualified teaching faculty, formulate enterprise technical standards, and integrate Chery’s “Grass Hut Spirit” into the talent cultivation system, creating over 1,000 teaching modules specific to the automotive industry. Since Chery’s founding in 1997, the university has offered automotive programs in parallel, supplying nearly 10,000 graduates to the company. To enhance responsiveness, the school has restructured its organizational framework, adopting flat, agile management and enterprise-style operational models to seamlessly align teaching environments with Chery’s production facilities. Leveraging two national-level teaching resource repositories, the institution has supported over 400,000 online learners and opened access to its training equipment, faculty expertise, and course materials. In practical talent development, the university and Chery co-founded an On-Site Engineer Academy and launched an innovative undergraduate vocational pilot class, featuring a four-year program with 1.5 years dedicated to on-the-job practical training. This model received the Anhui Provincial Teaching Achievement Award (First Prize) and has been promoted by platforms including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and People.cn. Moving forward, both parties will continue deepening integration of industry, academia, and research, refining the “Wuhu Vocational Model” to deliver industry-aligned, practice-oriented professionals for the automotive sector.