Blog article written by Carol Turnbull, WorldSkills UK Ambassador for Scotland – and Gold Sponsor of the CDN College Awards 2024.
It is a huge privilege for WorldSkills UK to join CDN in celebrating the achievements of staff and learners across Scotland’s colleges. Now, more than ever, it is important for us to recognise the success and talent that we have in our sector and the vital role our colleges play in helping to drive investment, jobs and economic growth.
Scottish colleges’ performance at the recent WorldSkills Competition in Lyon, France is testament to how the sector is helping to develop an internationally competitive workforce. Students from Scotland’s colleges represented the UK in skills as diverse as 3D Game Art, Renewable Energy, IT Network Systems Administration and Mechanical Engineering CAD. Together with 27 other young people from across England, Wales and Northern Ireland their performance helped the UK secure the tenth spot in the World rankings.
In celebrating the success of those students at WorldSkills, who hailed from City of Glasgow College, New College Lanarkshire and UHI Moray, we must also use their participation to keep pushing for world class training for all students. That is why at WorldSkills UK, we are committed to working with colleges in Scotland on programmes that support high quality skills development.
Through our Centre of Excellence, run in partnership with NCFE, we are embedding the international insights from our participation at WorldSkills to support colleges in raising standards in higher technical education.
The WorldSkills UK Learning Lab is a virtual learning centre that provides free, on-demand teaching and assessment resources and training tools to help embed world-class skills in technical education and apprenticeships all year round. It also offers a benchmarking tool so learners can be assessed against the national average in their skill.
These programmes can support in the everyday teaching of excellence, and it is the WorldSkills UK National Finals that provide a celebratory showcase to demonstrate the impact of this training on students and apprentices. It is fantastic to see once again such a strong cohort of young people representing Scotland at this year’s National Finals, which take place from 19-21 November, in Greater Manchester. If your college or department is not involved in this year’s WorldSkills UK Competitions, I would urge you all to get involved in 2025.
By working together, we can achieve a new ambition in skills development in Scotland and ensure that more young people are emerging from their training highly skilled, confident and ready for work.
