WorldSkills

Occupational Skills World Championships

WorldSkills is an international occupational skills competition held every two years. The world occupational skills championships are held by the non-profit international organisation WorldSkills International (WSI), founded in 1950 and based in the General Secretariat in the Netherlands. Currently, WorldSkills has more than 85 member countries worldwide.

The international competition is at the forefront of the Occupational Skills World Championships. Young professionals from all over the world up to the age of 22 have the opportunity to demonstrate their professional skills in more than 50 competitive professions on the international stage. They are vying for gold, silver and bronze medals and, of course, for the title of world champion in their profession.

Their work is watched with great interest by more than a hundred thousand visitors. Almost 1300 participants from all WorldSkills member countries contest the competition, which includes professional fields from technology, industry and the service sector.

From an overarching point of view, competitions in the individual occupations should also be seen as a competition between vocational education and training systems. For example, the dual vocational training system, which is limited to some Central European countries, applies to purely school-based systems (mainly in Northern Europe and Asia) or the essentially company-specific education system of the USA and other countries.

An occupational skills World Cup is a major event for the host country to present its own (professional) education system, but also a performance show for the economic quality of the location. The number of visitors with 150,000 to 250,000 (on four competition days) of these major events can be seen.