Autumn has come starting a new academic year at schools, vocational institutions and universities in China. Millions of boys and girls flocked to their classrooms seeking new knowledge. Where are going those who chose jewelry business as their future specialty, and what kind of training in this area can they get in China? Olga Patseva, Rough&Polished Asian Bureau Editor in Shanghai, tried to find answers to these questions.
Today, China is vying with the United States for supremacy on the world diamond scene turning into the largest producer of gold and going to compete with India for first place in its consumption. China's jewelry industry has become one of the key sectors in the country, and its wonton – I would say pubertal-like - development is attracting close and sometimes even wary attention worldwide. Meanwhile, even some 20 years ago jewelry education in China did not exist as such and professional training in this area was just beginning to take shape.
According to experts and general managers of jewelry companies, today there is an acute shortage of professionally trained jewelry professionals. Top managers and representatives of foreign fashion companies and organizations operating in China were often trained not under their Lares and Penates, but abroad. For example, Jun Jiang, General Representative of HRD Antwerp in China, was educated in Belgium, while Julius Zheng, CEO of Rapaport in Shanghai, got his diploma of a professional gemologist in the United States.
The jeweler specialty as academic education was first offered by the University of Geological Sciences of the People's Republic of China in the City of Wuhan and by Metallurgical Institute in Guilin, which started to enroll students for jewelry specialties in 1988. For more than 20 years, this education sector was rapidly developing, and today China has more than one hundred of educational institutions which are ready to train specialists in the basics of jewelry. The most famous and prestigious among them are the University of Geological Sciences of the People's Republic of China in Wuhan and Beijing, Peking University, Tongji University, Zhongshan University, Tianjin University of Commerce, Guilin Metallurgical Institute, Chengdu Polytechnic Institute, Fuzhou University, Beijing Institute of Jewellery (opened in 1998) and others.
The formation of jewelry education in China began with academic basics and then gradually ramified into more specialized areas, certificate programs, specialized training, higher and postgraduate education - a system of training graduates, who are awarded the degrees of master and doctor. Computer modeling of jewelry, wax modeling, molding, casting, jewelry design, quality control and assessment of jewelry gemstones and products, jade processing, jewelry marketing and management – the range of jewelry specialties in China is now wide.
In addition, the jewelry education here became more accessible geographically. If formerly you could join jewelry art only in major cities such as Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen, now vocational training in this area spread to the cities of the second and third levels. The system of certification for jewelry specialists in China is ever more improving; you can take refresher courses, specialized programs and obtain DGA, GAI, HRD, FGA, NGTC, GAC, GIC, IGI certificates, etc.
However, jewelry firms often say they are permanently running short of skilled personnel. The training which students get is often highly specialized. This may result, for instance in a situation where a jewelry designer has poor knowledge of the technological process and has no practical skills to introduce new techniques in the jewelry industry.
The shortcomings in jewelry education were also mentioned by the Beijing City University, which outlined them as follows:
1) Increased emphasis on theoretical knowledge rather than practical training. Professional jewelry education in China started rather late and had no firm foundation to rest upon. Today, many teachers working in the field of jeweler training are themselves semi-professionals who have completed some specialty in geology and subsequently turned to jewelry business.
2) There are no sufficiently clear standards of training. In other words, there are no distinct criteria to distinguish between graduates of various training programs. It is difficult to distinguish a graduate having a bachelor degree, which suggests a four-year training, and graduates from secondary and higher vocational institutions, which complete their course in 2 years.
3) Education does not keep abreast with the industry. As a result, students receive highly specialized knowledge and skills, which are also not updated as often as necessary. But in order to create a truly beautiful piece of jewelry art, you need to get high quality training which gives you a broad theoretical and practical arsenal and, most importantly, is able to lay a basis for further independent work.
4) Confusion in the system of jewelry education. The authorities exercising control and management of education are not familiar with the peculiarities of jewelry education. As a result, many educational institutions recruiting students for appropriate specialties have no qualified teaching staff or environment and equipment for training.
Education is lagging behind demand for personnel needed for work in the jewelry industry. According to expert data, currently Shanghai alone needs 100,000 professionals in the field of diamond jewelry, so employment opportunities for graduates of educational programs in the jewelry field are really promising.
Nevertheless, the educational sector is aware of the need to evolve and adapt to market requirements and is releasing new, more relevant programs for those wishing to work in any field of jewelry. Ding Longtao, Deputy Director of the Yihe Business School at the Jewelry Institute of the University of Geological Sciences of the People's Republic of China in Wuhan, believes that jewelry business in China will continue to grow primarily through franchising.
This means that it will require a large number of managers, guiding the activities of franchises, including profit earning, operations management, brand management, store design, training of sales personnel, etc. However, according to Ding Longtao, so far there is no specialized training for such staff in China, so it was decided to open a business school on the basis of the Jewelry Institute with an emphasis on practical knowledge and skills of jewelry managers.
"Jeweler education in China still lacks depth and a system; schools are trying to offer what the market needs, but the eventual result is similar to the proverb saying "A headache may waist your effort treating your head, while a pain in your leg may again waist your effort treating your leg." At present, jewelry companies manage to respond to the challenge posed by the influx of everything new: technology, models, management, food production, and personnel. Future competitive wars will be led exactly between these "components" of the jewelry business: capital, business models, human resources, corporate culture and brands. Our training programs are aimed at producing competitive specialists," the deputy director of the jewelry institute business school said. The list of other institutions offering jewelry personnel training can be found here.
It remains to wish good luck to prospective students eager to work in the jewelry industry in choosing their educational institutions.
Olga Patseva, Editor of the Rough&Polished Asian Bureau in Shanghai
