National Skills Competition Invites Entrants to Apply

The 2018 edition of the Worldskills Namibia’s National Skills (NS) competition is now open to students, employees and private candidates in the vocational training industry.

This was announced at the official launch on Tuesday, 12 March at the Namibia Training Authority Village Hall in Windhoek.

The first competition took place two years ago and allows various fields in vocational training to compete in Windhoek from 17 to 22 September and winners will later travel to Russia for the WorldSkills International competition.

Speaking at the launch, Sens Shoolongo, manager of the WorldSkills Namibia, said that the competition is meant to transform the technical and vocational education and training (TVET).

“We will ensure that all the experiences learnt will be applied towards making the NS competition a success and transform the TVET sector to be on par with the international sector.”

Chief executive officer of the Namibia Training Authority (NTA), Jerry Beukes, announced that the skills competition will have three components, namely the competition itself, the TVET expo and the TVET conference.

“The NS competition will serve as a platform to select Namibia’s competitors who will compete in Kazan, Russia,” Beukes said of the first component. The TVET Expo makes up a competition where institutions will exhibit their products and skills to members of the public. Lastly, the TVET conference is said to “bring together local and international industry representatives to share TVET experiences.”

WorldSkills is a non-political organisation that boasts a membership of over 70 countries and Namibia is one of six countries included.

“The NS competition will serve as a selection platform,” Beukes said. The competition is open to all entrants, employees and private candidates, and entrants will be expected to compete at the end of April. Those who are 22 and younger are encouraged to apply and will qualify to the Namibian team. The competition features 12 areas in the TVET section.

“We set a high benchmark for ourselves,” Richwell Lukonga, chief operating officer at the NTA said during his vote of thanks. “Our task for 2018 is much higher than what we did. We need to give red carpet treatment to the vocational training students.”

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