On Sunday the European biggest and most prestigious skills competition of young professionals EuroSkills 2012 was completed where the Latvian team received two excellence prizes in the competition of 450 participants.
Latvia was represented at the competition by 15 young professionals and the jury granted prizes of excellence to two of them. These were received by:
- the hairdresser Laura Salmiņa, who has graduated from Riga Vocational Secondary School of Style and Fashion and was training for the competition at Jūrmala salon „Skaistumam” and the beauty studio „Riga Top Hair ”,
- the carpenter Erlens Brutāns, who is a student at Riga Secondary School of Crafts.
The competition EuroSkills 2012 took place in Belgium from the 4th to the 6th October and representatives from 23 countries in 46 professions participated there. Prizes of excellence were granted to the competitors who received more than 500 points out of 600 points available. Erlens Brutāns also obtained the title „Best of Nation” for the best performance in the national team.
Dita Traidās, the Director of the State Education Development Agency (VIAA): "The biggest challenge of this year for our team was to compete despite the advantages of young professionals from other countries who were equipped with better tools and equipment, for example, automated, accurate and high capacity tile cutting tools. Our young professionals constructed a moulding for the first time because this is not included in the vocational education curriculum of the drywall construction experts. Although the team is tired now and would have liked to demonstrate better performance, we are proud that all the competitors fought to the end, completed their tasks and were proud to represent Latvia."
Today the Latvian delegation will visit the Ambassador of Latvia in the Kingdom of Belgium in order to share their impressions gained during the competition. After that the young professionals will see the European Parliament and return to Latvia in the evening.
EuroSkills is an international skills competition where young professionals or students of vocational education establishments aged from 17 to 25 participate. The competition of the European scale takes place every second year and alternates with the professional skills competition of the global scale WorldSkills. The participation of Latvia in EuroSkills has been ensured by the VIAA since 2010.
All the reports from Euroskills 2012 are available on the VIAA website Section EuroSkills.
Photos from the event are available at VIAA Flickr account and EuroSkills 2012 Flickr account.