Staff Reporter
Windhoek-WorldSkills Namibia and WorldSkills China are drafting a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for future collaborations and partnerships, especially in Technical and Vocational Training (TVET) skills exchange programmes.
This follows a one day visit on July 7 by a delegation of WorldSkills China. It discussed with its Namibian counterpart possible collaboration between the two countries in areas of TVET, in particular, and the improvement of respective local and national skills competitions.
It met with WorldSkills Namibia officials to appraise them on respective activities and future plans and with the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Higher Education, Training and Innovation, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Namibia Training Authority and other senior officials.
As one of shortlisted Official Bidders for 2021, the delegation of senior officials also presented its Shanghai 2021 Bid.
The bi-annual WorldSkills Competition is held in a different member country by way of a bidding process. All WorldSkill International (WSI) members may bid to host the competition in line with competition rules on selection of a host country/city.
The host member is determined through a rigorous process entailing expression of interest by members, validation visits by the WSI board to the prospective member/city to do a comprehensive analysis of capacity, and shortlisting of a maximum of three members meeting certain criteria, who are subsequently invited to prepare a formal bid, in accordance with a bidding template and rules to ensure fairness and comparability of bids.
Upon satisfying the above criteria, the bidding members are allowed time to communicate and market their proposals to other members ahead of presenting their formal bid document at a relevant WorldSkills General Assembly (GA).
The hosting city/member is democratically determined by a secret voting process by members (through the technical and official delegates) in October 2017 at a General Assembly to be held at Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
The last World Skills Competition was held in Sao Paulo, Brazil in 2015, where Kazan was voted to host the 2019 WSC. In its first participation in 2015, China competed in 29 skills and Namibia in four. For this year’s competition, to be held in Abu Dhabi in October, China will send 47 participants with Namibia sending seven.