The UK is preparing to compete in the largest skills-based competition in the world.
 
The 40th WorldSkills games, to be held this summer in Calgary, Canada, is aimed at 15- to 23-year-olds studying vocational courses at college or work and features competitions in more than 40 categories, ranging from hairdressing to brick-laying.
 
The competition is run every two years and this year Team UK will be joining competitors from 52 countries battling for gold, silver and bronze medals.
 
Speaking exclusively to TJ, Simon Bartley, chief executive of UK Skills, the organisation responsible for managing the 30 Team UK competitors, said: “I’d love them all to come home with gold - we don’t just participate to take part, we participate with the aim of winning medals like in the Olympics.”
 
“As with all competitors, they swing emotionally from one extreme to the other in preparation for the event and we encourage them to feel positive but not complacent; you need to feel that you are going to perform at your best to succeed and, unlike the Olympics, it is hard to know what your competitors will be like on the day.”
 
All of the young people taking part in the event will be eligible for Medallions of Excellence, irrespective of their final ranking. The award is presented to anyone who attains a world-class benchmark set by Worldskills for their category.
 
Bartley says UK Skills’ aim is for the whole team to achieve this standard. “You are competing to do your skills justice and that is what we are encouraging,” he said.
 
UK Skills says the competition will boost skills in the UK and that not only individuals, who have to train intensively, but also the companies they work for benefit from the skills they develop beyond their standard vocational training.
 
“Without exception, the skills they learn for the competition are applicable to their workplace,” said Bartley. “We had one competitor who reckoned his 18 months training in preparation for the previous competition in Japan moved his technical ability on five years and deepened his skills while giving him a new range.”
 
In what is seen by UK Skills as a boost to the profile of vocational courses in the UK, London will host the next WorldSkills games in 2011.
 
Bartley concluded: “More is being done by this government for skills then ever before - could they do more? Yes they could, but before they do that we, as employers and society, need to do something as well - we need to get the message out to people that university is not the only way to have a successful career because there is an equally high-quality career to be gained through a vocational route.
 
“I think in the last 30 years we’ve expanded access to universities, which is no bad thing, but in doing that we seem to have been talking down the alternative and it is time to redress that balance.”
 
The four-day competition takes place from 1st-7th September and, with more than 120,000 spectators expected to attend, it will almost be as large as the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics.

Picture of Thomas Mayor a mechanical engineering CADD specialist courtesy of Matt Writtle

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