Standard training in place for funeral service industry
A forum on interment and funeral education is held to mark the launch of two modern funeral industry colleges.
Two modern funeral industry colleges have been established under the cooperation of the funeral and interment vocational education academy and institutes in Shanghai, Beijing and Hunan Province, to tackle the acute shortage of professionals in the field.
The establishment was announced on Tuesday under the cooperation of Shanghai Qingpu Li Ji Academy, Beijing College of Social Administration affiliated to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, and Changsha Social Work College.
The cooperation, the first of its kind, will cover training, further education, skill improvement for those in the field, and life education for society, according to Wang Jisheng, deputy director of China Funeral Association.
Over the past 30 years since modern interment and funeral professional education system started to develop in China, only eight educational institutions in China have set up interment and funeral majors, according to Zhou Jingbo, deputy director of the association and a former councilor of the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau.
The launch ceremony
The number of their graduates is fewer than 1,000 per year, leading to an increasingly large gap of professionals in the industry year on year, he noted.
The newly unveiled Shanghai Qingpu Li Ji Academy, a higher education institution approved by the Qingpu District Education Bureau, will establish business, industry, social sciences, and international colleges, and provide education for self-study exam takers. Enrollment has started.
Via bilingual education online and offline, students will receive a Memorial Arranger Training (Asia) Certificate after graduation.
Eight training bases under the Fu Shou Yuan International Group, China's largest cemetery and funeral service provider, in cities like Shanghai, Hangzhou, Ningbo and Zhengzhou will provide internship and practice opportunities for students and graduates in areas such as antiseptic cosmetics and funeral ceremonies.
In China's funeral and interment sector, there are only 90,000 employees, compared with the country's 900 million labor force, or one for every 10,000 people.
