The biggest ever international skills competition, WorldSkills London 2011, is imminent and touching down in the Capital between 5-8 October. London Excel conference centre will welcome 150,000 visitors, and 1,000 competitors from 50 different countries who will be competing in 46 different skills competitions.
Not only will the event see the best students in the business competing in their specialist skill areas , but there will be a number of opportunities for visitors to try out the interactive ‘Have a Go’ activities skills ranging from electronics to plumbing, web design and fashion to cabinet making. Opportunities for young people to receive advice and guidance on careers will be another key feature of the event.
The College of North West London has 200 students attending the event and acting as volunteer stewards or in other roles. The College also has many ‘Have a Go’ events of its own happening at the College in the run up to the week.
At the competition itself, committed and talented CNWL students are going to be exhibiting an interactive table which they have been designing for many months. The initial proposal beat 250 other entries from colleges across London to get the go-ahead to showcase at the event.
The idea for the successful entry was launched in response to a request for a project aimed at helping students with learning difficulties to have more opportunities to use IT.
Computing Students Damian Jay, Tahsin, and Aung-Myo Win, took forward the project after attending a Personal and Social development class in Wembley, where they were able to analyse and gain feedback from students on the issues which prevent them from using IT as well as they could.
Damian said: “One of the key findings from attending the class was that some of the students do not have the ability to click a mouse. This is something that we can take for granted, but we quickly established that the device would have to be touch screen to be successful.
“We hope that the device can make a real impact at the competition and that a number of people can get insight into how it could greatly enhance people’s learning experience and change lives.”
If this was not enough, CNWL also has two UK Skills Gold Medallists receiving awards at the event, Abid Hussain, who won Gold in Web Design, and Shaun Bann who clinched top marks in the Refrigeration competitions held over this summer.
Principal Vicki Fagg, who is the London regional champion for WorldSkills UK and a guest speaker at the WorldSkills ceremonies at Excel, said: “We are very excited at the prospect of so many of the most skilled students across the world coming to London this October, and for many of our students to compete against them, experience a high profile event, and get direction for their careers.
“We are very proud of our Gold medal winners who have demonstrated against national WorldSkills UK competition standards that they are the best in the country, and we wish them the very best.
“The UK lags behind other countries in technical level skills, therefore we as a college are committed to supporting our students at every level to keep improving their skills, gain employment and ultimately contribute to the sustainable growth of the economy, and WorldSkills London 2011 is the perfect opportunity to demonstrate this.”
http://www.worldskillslondon2011.com/
Picture Shows ICT students at the College who will be attending the event including Abid Hussain (far left, Gold Medal UK Skills web design winner) and College lecturers Ali Shariff and Ajantha Munidasa.
