COLLEGE STUDENTS IN WORLDSKILLS UK FINALS

TWO Coleg Menai Engineering students based at the college’s Llangefni campus have qualified for this year’s WorldSkills national finals.

17-year-olds Aidan Skinner and Cai Jones (pictured right) will each compete against eight other qualifiers from across the length and breadth of the UK in two separate categories.

Aidan, from Bodorgan, who studies on the college’s Level 3 Manufacturing Engineering course, will compete in the Mechanical CAD competition, whilst Level 3 Electronic/ Electrical Engineering student Cai from Holyhead, will battle it out in the Industrial Electronics final.

Taking place in November at New College, Lanarkshire in Scotland, the Mechanical CAD competition will see Aidan and his fellow finalists challenged with complex mechanical 3D modelling tasks and drawings.

During the same month, Cai will travel to Gower College in Swansea to compete in the Industrial Electronics final, where he will be judged on a range of electronics activities: soldering, fault finding, basic electronic theory and hardware design.

Damian Woodford, Coleg Menai’s programme area manager for Engineering, said: “Both Cai and Aidan have always demonstrated a keen interest in their respective subjects and work hard at college to develop and improve their skills.

“Coleg Menai is extremely proud of both of them and we wish them all the best for the finals.”

WorldSkills organises the world championships of vocational skills, and is held every two years in different parts of the world. WorldSkills brings together young people, industry, government, education, and institutions, to promote the benefits of and need for skilled trade professionals. The aims of the competition include demonstrating the advantages of learning a vocational skill, and encouraging ‘parity of esteem’ between vocational and academic qualifications. The city of Kazan, Russia, hosted the 45th WorldSkills Competition in 2019.

For more information on courses at the college’s Llangefni campus, telephone 01248 383 348, email learnerservices.menai@gllm.ac.uk or visit www.gllm.ac.uk