In its selection competitions, State Education Development Agency (SEDA) has identified the young specialists who will represent Latvia in the international skills competition for young professionals, EuroSkills 2018. The competition will take place in Budapest in September 26 - 28.
12 young specialists in 10 skills competitions gained the opportunity to represent Latvia in EuroSkills 2018:
- fashion technologies - Laura Kreivina (Riga Design and Art Secondary School) and Elīna Skrindževska (Jelgava Crafts Secondary School);
- window-dressing - Luīze Mihailova (Liepāja Art and Design Secondary School);
- grafics design - Katrīna Elizabete Sīle (Riga State Technical School);
- information and communication technologies - Igors Būmanis (Riga Technical College) and Ričards Trofimovs (Priekuļi Technical School);
- development of websites - Gustavs Rācenājs (Riga Technical College);
- tiling - Danijs Slugovičs (Saldus Technical School);
- electrical installations - Aleksejs Tarasovs (Riga State Technical School);
- repair and maintenance of heavy vehicles - Jānis Ozols (Priekuļi Technical School);
- cooking - Nils Ģēvele (Mālpils Professional Secondary School);
- restaurant services - Madara Miņina (Riga Tourism and Creative Industry Technical School).
Leader of the Team Latvia and Director of SEDA Dita Traidās underlines: “EuroSkills competition gathers the best young professionals and industry experts from across Europe. Therefore, participation in this extensive skills competition is an opportunity for Latvia to prove the international competitiveness of vocational education. In EuroSkills and WorldSkills Latvia participates already since 2008, and I can proudly say that on the international scale we are excellent because in terms of medals per one inhabitant, Latvia has more medals than any other country of the world.”
Before commissioning the young professionals for participation in EuroSkills 2018, young people demonstrated their skills first in their schools, and then the best competed in the national competition SkillsLatvia. Participants who received awards were given the opportunity to participate in selection competitions by preparing with much care. For several months, 28 candidates of Team Latvia under instruction of professionals of their industries participated in training and master classes organised by SEDA and will continue to prepare until the competition in Budapest takes place.
This year, competition EuroSkills 2018 will gather approximately 600 young professionals from 28 countries, including 12 young people from Latvian vocational education institutions. EuroSkills competition takes place every other year and is interchanged with the world scale professional skills competition WorldSkills. You can find more on achievements of Team Latvia in previous years in the section of SEDA website SkillsLatvia.
Participation of Team Latvia in the competition EuroSkills 2018 is financed by the European Social Fund and co-financed by the Latvian State Project “Career Support in General and Vocational Education Institutions”.