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4 April 2014

Benefits of skills competitions for youth

wsa2014_students.jpgWorldSkills Champions will tell you that taking part in a WorldSkills Competition is a life changing experience. Did you know that this is also the case for the young people that come to watch the competitors in action? Where else can they come and get acquainted with the world of skills? Would they have heard about the choices available to them if they had not visited a WorldSkills Competition?

WorldSkills Competitions, enables youth to see a skilled profession in action then to actually engage and talk to people in those skills. For some skills, they are even given the opportunity to try their hands at a skill. WorldSkills opens the door to a world of opportunity. Since 1950, WorldSkills has raised the awareness among youth, as well as their parents, teachers and employers that our future depends on an effective skills training system. But youth only know what they see in their everyday life, WorldSkills provides alternative options and rewarding futures for them. 

At the recent WorldSkills Americas Bogota 2014 event, there were over 120,000 young students engaging with skills around site. They weren't just walking by the skills, they had questionnaires and surveys they had to fill out in order to learn more about professional skills and other cultures. They were eager to soak up this new knowledge and make sense of all these new career futures available to them. They learned they could combine their passions and interests to create a rewarding future.