WorldSkills Update 23 March 2011

Dear *|FNAME|*,

Editorial: By Christine Scoot, Marketing & Project Coordinator, WSI

The WorldSkills movement is in its final countdown and preparation mode for the 41st WorldSkills Competition. With Competitions, events and updates, this issue will share with you the ground swell of activity happening in every corner of the globe.

WorldSkills International would first like to welcome on board a new Global Industry Partner, our 10th international corporation to join the premier list of partners. We can’t wait to explore and build this new relationship and learn more about Siemens.

More Nationals and a Regional Competition (The GCC Skills Competition) have been conducted over the last month and we are pleased to share these inspiring stories with you.

Next month will be one of the busiest in our calendar. The Competition Preparation Week will run during the first week of April. We are very excited to get the Skill Management Teams together and kick off the 6 month countdown to WorldSkills London 2011.

Want to hear about the latest activities and preparations from our next Host Organising Committee? Keep reading and you’ll learn about a great variety of initiatives being launched and developed to make WorldSkills London 2011 the best Competition ever.

As the WorldSkills movement continues to grow we are seeing more and more knowledge sharing and transfer between our Members. In this issue you’ll hear four different perspectives concerning transferring ideas and best practices in vocational education from Australia and Germany to Jamaica.

Scroll down to read more.

Siemens becomes Global Industry Partner
of WorldSkills International

GERMANY (March 3rd, 2011) – The aim is to improve the quality of vocational education and training worldwide. Siemens has signed a partnership contract with the non-profit organisation WorldSkills International (WSI). As a Global Industry Partner, Siemens will support WSI in improving the quality of vocational education and training worldwide.

Siemens is the 10th Global Industry Partner, swelling ranks that include companies like Wuerth, Festo and Samsung, and it will consolidate the topic area industrial automation at WSI. At the same time, Siemens will be a product sponsor of the 41st WorldSkills Competition to be held in London in October 2011. Siemens will provide equipment in the two competitions "Industrial Control" and "Polymechanics/Automation", and for this purpose it will equip the Competitors with automation and drive components.

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Countdown to WorldSkills London 2011

One Million Opportunities to Have a Go

By WorldSkills London 2011

Skills Minister calls for a million learning opportunities across the UK
On February 28 Skills Minister for England John Hayes and London Mayor Boris Johnson, gave their backing to the WorldSkills London 2011 Have a Go campaign, designed to create a million opportunities for people across the UK, to learn new skills in 2011. WorldSkills London 2011 now wants to take this campaign to a global level.

As part of the official countdown to WorldSkills London 2011, taking place this October, the Have a Go campaign will allow people to gain hands-on experience in all sorts of skills – from Autobody Repair to Hairdressing to Landscape Gardening. The WorldSkills London 2011 Have a Go campaign will culminate in a three-week, UK-wide skills festival from September 19 to October 9.

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Launch of Resource hub

WorldSkills London 2011 has recently launched a ‘resources’ page on the site, to help all those associated with the event. The resources are aimed at businesses, sponsors, schools, colleges, exhibitors, journalists, students and the public and give a flavour of what to expect at WorldSkills London 2011:

www.worldskillslondon2011.com/resources

News from WorldSkills International

Competition Preparation Week

By WorldSkills International

The Competition Preparation Week is a hot topic these days. WorldSkills International, WorldSkills London 2011, every Chief Expert, Deputy Chief Expert, Workshop Supervisor and Technical Delegate are keeping busy outlining their objectives.

The Competition Preparation Week (CPW) will be held from March 30 to April 3 and brings together the entire Skill Management Team (SMT) as well as the Workshop Supervisors. This is a unique opportunity for knowledge sharing and competition preparation and imprevement.

The program and agenda is structured to share, discuss and guide all key aspects of preparations and planning for WorldSkills London 2011. The meeting will also facilitate the learning, development and overall preparedness of all Competition personnel.

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News from around the world

Change at UK Skills

On February 1, 2011, the duties and staff of UK Skills transferred to the Skills Funding Agency. This included the responsibility for both Team UK (the UK’s team that competes at international skills competitions), and WorldSkills UK (the UK’s local, regional and national skills competition network).

As a result of the transfer, and in preparation for his taking on the role as WorldSkills International’s President in October, Simon Bartley has stepped down as Chief Executive of UK Skills and WorldSkills London 2011, whilst remaining the UK’s Official Delegate to WorldSkills and WorldSkills Europe, serving on the Boards of both and remaining on the Board of WorldSkills London 2011.

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Twenty Provincial Champions with a ticket to London

By WorldSkills Liechtenstein

Twenty young people have taken a giant step towards taking part in the WorldSkills Competition in London this October. As of February 19 the Competition concluded and the medallists have been picked in the 20 skill areas. The 20 newly crowned Provincial Champions have received their medals, as have all those placing second and third.

For the 170 apprentices and journeymen from trades and crafts, Restaurant Service and Landscape Gardening, the Bolzano trade fairgrounds were turned into a huge workshop for three days. In the end, a jury of specialists evaluated the work done by the young participants and selected the winners.

The young wall and floor tillers, for example, had 17 hours to lay a variety of tiles to correspond exactly to the pattern specified in a drawing. The young plumbers tightened fittings, soldered and welded to complete an intricate piping structure. The car technicians, in the meantime, looked for the causes of engine, brake and electronic problems, while the young hairdressers showed their mastery of challenging hairstyles.

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Another brick in the wall

By Pia Hegner, Technical Delegate for Denmark

The Bricklayers’ Trade Committee repeated the success from 2009 by making the final selection of the Competitor for WorldSkills London 2011 at Copenhagen Central Station. On a normal day more than 100,000 people walk through the almost 100 year old wooden arches of the station, and the last two days really gave them something to look at – many cell phone cameras flashed. Two young bricklayers were competing for a ticket to the WorldSkills Competition 2011 (WSC2011) in London with Team Denmark, using 40m2 of the station to build walls with the two logos of the Danish Rail.

‘We had a great time here in 2009 and wanted to do it once more. This year, however, we had to pay for the use of the space because we are also displaying the sponsor logos. It is worth it though because we get as close to the same atmosphere as you can experience at a WorldSkills Competition where the same amount of people walk past them every day making a lot of noise and shooting a few comments their way,’ says Erik Fog Larsen from the Bricklayers’ Trade Committee’s Secretariat.

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The 2nd regional GCC Skills Competition

By Ahmed Albakhit and Reem Khammas,
Team Leaders, United Arab Emirates

Saturday March 5, 2011 formed the beginning of the second Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) Skills Competition in Muscat, Oman. Thirty Competitors from Bahrain, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and The United Arab Emirates were introduced to the public in the presence of official delegations from all the participating countries. The audience also included students from different technical institutions within Oman as well as people from the community.

The Opening Ceremony was under the patronage of H.E. Dr. Ahmed Bin Mohammed Al Saeedi, Minister of Health, who honourably announced the beginning of the second round of the GCC Skills Competition. The Ceremony reflected Oman's heritage through short documentaries and astonishing traditional dances performed by a local band.

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An Australian/Jamaican exchange

GTA and international engagement - it begins in Jamaica

By James Barron, Executive Director, Group Training Australia

Late January effectively marked a new chapter in the life and times of Group Training Australia (GTA). For the first time the GTA Board agreed to send a small representative delegation abroad as part of a bigger Australian & European education & training delegation. The delegation’s mission was to Jamaica and it took place between 23-29 January, 2011.

The invitation came from the Jamaican Government following their hosting last October of the WorldSkills International General Assembly and Leaders Forum. Jamaica is a developing country and like so many other developing countries is grappling with a number of major economic, financial, social and cultural challenges. Near the top of the ‘to do’ list is how to reform existing education and training structures and approaches so as to better prepare itself to compete in a highly competitive global market as well as to educate and train its youth. Much work has already been done in Jamaica but much is still before it. In devising the program and in discussions with WorldSkills International’s President, Mr. Jack Dusseldorp, the Jamaican government indicated substantial interest in the Australian group training model and how its features may be applied to suit various aspects of the education and training system in Jamaica.

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Australian/European visit to assist Jamaica
with the Apprenticeship Programme

By Grace McLean, Chief Education Officer,
Ministry of Education, Jamaica

The Australian/European team visit to Jamaica was an overwhelming success. The points below outline the key success factors that were set for the visit as well as the tangible outcomes. All objectives were achieved and we are now moving towards refining the report and action plan after which we will move towards implementation

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A contribution to Jamaican vocational training
from European industry

By Martin Williams, Product Manager - Training & Consulting, Festo

Since the Australian–European delegation was mostly concerned with looking at “doing the right things”, we wanted to add an opportunity to explore “doing things right”. Four proposals for workshops were sent to Grace McLean, Chief Education Officer in Jamaica, for consideration – three of these were selected and put into the program. So during the week, in my role as the European and Industry delegate from Europe, I ran three four-hour workshops on:

1. Fostering organisational and people skills in technical training – making it much more fun for everyone including the trainer.
2. Formulating competency-based training outcomes - the essential and often neglected key to effective training.

An approach to conducting a Training Needs Analysis - we use case-by-case for industry customers, but the principles are generic.

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Exchange to strengthen apprenticeship
programs in Jamaica

By Marlon Maulsby, WorldSkills Champion in Web Design,
Team Jamaica 2007

With the vision of sharing best practise and know-how, Tjerk Dusseldorp, President of WorldSkills International and Chairman of the Dusseldorp Skills Forum, pooled an alliance of experienced professionals from Australia and Germany to visit Jamaica. This visit allowed this remarkable group of people to review and suggest a way forward for apprenticeship programs in Jamaica. The Jamaican Youth Forum provided an opportunity for youth to share their perspective of the apprenticeship systems in Jamaica, extracting their perspectives on how it could be enhanced.

The week got off to an interesting start at a welcome reception hosted by the Minister of Education, the Hon. Andrew Holness. A dinner was arranged prior to the Youth Forum to allow for youth representatives to meet with the international visitors. It was at this dinner that Tjerk Dusseldorp announced Australia’s invitation to the Jamaican WorldSkills Competitors to visit Australia. This visit would allow the Competitors to train alongside the Australian Competitors and even compete in the Australian National Skills Competition.

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Upcoming WorldSkills events

Do you have events that you want to see here, send them to ellen.coppens@worldskills.org.