During today and tomorrow more than 40 students from eleven profiles of various professional families of Professional Training (FP) of the educational centers of Melilla compete in the championship ‘Melilla Skills’.
The Government Delegate, Sabrina Moh, and the Provincial Director of Education, Juan Ángel Berbel, have highlighted this activity hosted by the CIFP ‘Reina Victoria Eugenia’, before the media “which shows the level of development of technical professional skills acquired by students” thanks to a test designed by the tutors.
The highest representative of the Government of Spain in our city has referred to the impulse that the Executive is giving to the FP, as well as the realization of this type of championships that “serve as a showcase to show the rest of the territory that our students are highly trained and highly qualified.”
Not only that, Moh has pointed out that for the competing students themselves it is “highly rewarding”, given that the winners will participate in the state edition, the ‘Spain Skill’, in April 2024. A contest in which, in addition to being able to show their talent and their training, it will also serve to be able to interact and interact with the rest of the students of the different points of the territory, “so it will serve as an experience, not only at a professional level, but also at a personal level,” he said.
The head of the Government Delegation referred to the good work of the Government of Pedro Sánchez in terms of professional training in our city. This work means that, this year, there are 2,600 students enrolled in the different training cycles, which means 1,000 more students than during the 2019-2020 academic year.
But, in addition, Moh has also referred to the improvement of the training offer. “Since the 2019-2020 academic year, 25 degrees have been implemented here, in our city, with basic vocational training, middle degree, higher degree, distance vocational training and the two specialization courses.” And, this same year, with respect to last year, five new degrees have been implemented, he recalled.
Therefore, he stressed that these are “historical figures, not only in terms of enrolled students, but also in terms of the training offer”. And, therefore, he has made it clear that it is an unequivocal bet for the Professional Training of the Government of Spain “not only for training, but also for employment and for the economy of our city”, given that “it responds to a historical demand, as it was that the city has qualified profiles to meet the current reality and the demands we have on the part of the different sectors here of Melilla”.
Stimulate students and companies
Berbel, for his part, recalled that the MEyFP has made a quite important economic bet in the FP aimed at changing the structure of the productive and business fabric of the country. “We need enough technicians, superior technicians, profiles that we do not have right now to the extent that the productive and business market is not demanding,” he said.
For this reason, he added, “one of the ways to make visible great work that is done in professional training is precisely the competition that gives it prestige, lustre and splendor and that is the Skills”.
These are skills competitions “where professional training is disseminated and it is a means to encourage students, teachers, companies and the general public who want to appear in the competition to see the eleven professional families compete”.
Berbel explained that the Skills competition has several phases, the first being the regional phase. Then it goes to the national phase, which takes place at the IFEMA, where “there is the largest of all the students of the vocational training that exists in this country”. “Those students who get a medal are the ones who will then represent Spain in the European phase and finally there is a global phase,” he said.
The COVID pandemic caused that the Melilla Skills had not been developed since 2028. On this occasion, students from 11 professional families compete, such as hairdressing, aesthetics, bakery, kitchen, florist, network system management, electrical installations, refrigeration and air conditioning, automotive technology, social and health care, window dressing and visual marketing.
With respect to the previous years, in which eight professional families competed, it has increased by three, specifically those of bakery, thanks to the middle degree cycle that has been implemented this year 2023-2024 in the CIFP ‘Reina Victoria Eugenia’; Window Dressing and Visual Marketing, of the same educational center and Floristeria, of the ‘Juan Antonio Fernández’. In addition, the center hosts a professional family, the one of video, disc-jockey and sound, as an exhibition.
The Provincial Director of Education has welcomed the support of the productive and business sector of the city, since more than twenty companies in the city have sponsored the event and have provided material to the different students who are going to compete, and has stressed that “it is an opportunity for the company to persist here and see ‘in situ’ how these students are working in those areas of production that can be good for them”.