Lecturer to champion local skills Olympians

Michael Melaugh is Head of Craft at the North West Regional College (NWRC). He will act as official champion for young competitors who want to take part in the competition.

The WorldSkills Competition - billed the skills equivalent of the Olympics - is the biggest international skills competition in the world and is held every two years by WorldSkills International.

All competitors are 22 years or under in the year of the competition except in Mechatronics, Aircraft Maintenance and Manufacturing.

In the Team Challenge competition the age limit is 25. The competition lasts for 22 hours over four days.

There are normally around 40 official skill categories (ranging from cabinet making and hairdressing to web design and landscape gardening) plus up to 8 demonstration skill categories.

Competitors compete for gold, silver and bronze medals. Medallions for Excellence are also awarded to competitors who achieve the International standard.

According to a spokesperson for the Department of Employment and Learning (DEL): "Northern Ireland is part of this exciting global competition. DEL has been working closely with Sector Skills Councils and FE Colleges in Northern Ireland to increase the registrations on the range of Worldskills UK competitions and to develop new Northern Ireland competitions which can feed into national finals.

"In Northern Ireland last year we had four new competitions - the Hospitality Skills Cookery competition, Mechatronics competition, Visual Merchandising competition and Automotive competition, all of which DEL either fully or partly funded."

He added: "Northern Ireland competitors perform well on the world stage. In each of the last three WorldSkills competitions Northern Ireland had one competitor and on each occasion they won a medal. For example, 2005 - Andrew Blair, gold medal, Autobody repair, 2007 – Jonathan Lloyd, bronze medal, car painting and 2009 - Trevor Woods, bronze medal, joinery."