Skills ‘Olympics’ give SA builders a chance at gold

As a chef I couldn’t compete in the Olympics, but here I can win a medal for SA

NOT a lot of kids want to be plumbers when they grow up, but they might change their minds if they could win a gold medal at the world skills “Olympics”.

The 19-member South African team heading to the WorldSkills Competition in Brazil in August includes not only the top young plumber but the country’s best plasterer, auto electrician, welder and graphic designer.

The competition, the biggest vocational education and skills excellence event in the world, represents 45 skills and 72 countries.

And for the first time, Team South Africa has the backing of the government.

Although South Africa has been involved intermittently in the competition since the early ’90s, this is the first year that the Department of Higher Education has come on board.

More than 1 000 competitors, aged 22 and under, are due to descend on the city of São Paulo in what will be a record number of participants for the four-day competition.

Durban chef Tayla Schou is part of Team South Africa. The part-time lecturer and final-year advanced diploma student at Fusion Cooking School will be going for gold in the chef category.

“You need to be physically and mentally fit. It’s cool that I am part of Team South Africa. As a chef I could never compete in the Olympics, but here I can win a medal for my country,” said Schou.

In a São Paulo undercover arena, almost 2km long, plumbers from around the world will install a geyser, a washbasin, a toilet and a network of water pipes in a cubicle. The plasterers will build the metal structure around which dry-walling is fixed, then plastered. The welders, each in a box cubicle, will weld together blocks of various sized and shaped metals.

Entrants are assessed on aspects of the task and the marks added up at the end of the process, said Andre Vermeulen, the technical delegate for WorldSkills South Africa.

He said government support meant colleges and universities of technology would be involved for the first time.