EVENTS AND EXHIBITIONS
15
WorldSkills Abu Dhabi,
October 2017
It is cool to be a 21st-century artisan, and South Africa aims to add five new
skills every time we compete.
The next WorldSkills competition will be held in Abu
Dhabi in October 2017 and aims to:
• Promote exchange between young professionals
from various regions of the world.
• Exchange skills, experience, and technological
innovations.
• Raise the understanding in governments,
education, and industry to the importance of skills
training.
• Raise the awareness of youth and those who
influence the youth to opportunities available in
skilled professions.
Why are skills competitions so important?
• Training, qualifying, and competing in the WorldSkills
competition equals 4–5 years of professional training.
• Builds character, confidence, commitment, and self-
esteem.
• Helps align and increase the quality of the required
standards in vocational and educational training
systems.
• Helps benchmark the educational training system
against industry, public demand, and across borders.
• The challenge of a competition brings fun and exciting
elements into teaching and training.
• Provides the validation that the mastery of a skill
requires practical learning and training over time.
• Raises quality, promotes professional development, and
drives improvements in vocational training.
• WorldSkills offers the infrastructure and competition
experience to engage with a number of target groups,
from students in grade school and secondary school to
youth, governments, and educators.
• Since the 2003 WorldSkills Competition, a combined
992 000 people have visited the competitions, with
4 931 competitors at the global level.
In the plumbing category
Plumbers install water, sanitation, drainage, and heating
pipes for houses and industrial sites. The tasks can include
natural and manufactured gas and compressed air pipe
installations. Pipes may be welded, soft-soldered, hard-
soldered, threaded, and jointed using proprietary fittings.
Pipe jointing by machine crimping may also be used. Pipe
www.plumbingafrica.co.za
In action at the WorldSkills competition held in Durban earlier this year.
A complete piping and drainage installation from the Durban competition.
bending may be carried out by hydraulically operated or
hand-operated bending machines and by applying heat
(black mild steel pipe only), with the bending angles only
being measured for machine-made bends and the radiuses
and angles being measured for heat-made bends.
The installation and fixing of the pipes to various building
components is an integral component of the skill, as is
the installation of terminal fittings, sanitary and heating
appliances and components, for example showers, basins,
WCs, boilers, radiators, and circulators. PA
For more information, visit
http://www.worldskillssa.dhet.gov.za
July 2017 Volume 23 I Number 5