A delegation of eleven students, accompanied by tutors from the educational centers of the city and heads of the Provincial Directorate of the Ministry of Education, Vocational Training and Sports (MEFPyD) of Melilla, will travel next week to Madrid to participate in the edition Spainskills 2024, which will be held from 9 to 13 of this month at the IFEMA.
The regional coordinator and technical advisor of the Provincial Directorate, Antonio Guevara, together with the also technical advisor of this agency María Carmen García, in an interview granted yesterday to Onda Cero, reported on this competition in which Melilla has been participating since 2007.
The Melilla students who are going to participate, winners of the local phase - the Melilla Skills, which took place on 9 and 10 November last year - belong to the profiles of Electrical Installation, Florist, Hairdressing, Aesthetics, Automotive Technology, Kitchen, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning, ICT, Network Systems Administration, Social Health Care, Window Dressing and Visual Marketing, and Bakery.
In addition, of these 11 profiles, Melilla also attends, in the demonstration mode, this national event with the profile of Technician in Pharmacy and Parapharmacy, as explained by Guevara.
“In each modality, a series of tests is established that must be carried out in a time that is fixed,” said Guevara, who has clarified that there is a jury for each specialty, “which supervises and scores each of the different exercises that are done.” “Each participant faces tests alone and at no time can the tutor be consulted,” he said, although he made it clear that “the tutor is always there.”
Not only that, during the tests “a lot of people visit the IFEMA, since the competition is open to the public and the participants have to face not only the exercises or tests that they are given and the supervision of the jury, but also, the tests are carried out in front of the attendees who are going to see it.”
Professional skills
The Skills, as explained by García, are skill competitions, which are convened every two years, aimed at students or recent graduates of Vocational Training (FP) and have the regional phase, the national phase - which is the one that will take place next week -, the European phase, in which the winners of Spain compete, and the world phase.
“The students show the professional skills acquired during their training, through the development of a series of practical exercises or tests,” he said, while highlighting the significant number of companies that sponsor and collaborate with the organization of this competition. “Companies belong to all productive sectors and allow a direct contact of the participants, that is, with a real working environment and with the latest technical and technological innovations,” he said.
These competitions meet several objectives, such as promoting and improving the quality of Vocational Training, but also to stimulate and motivate students “because to be in that environment, with a real environment, doing tests, with the latest technologies, that is very motivating”, he has made clear.
At the same time, it serves to recognize and stimulate the work of Vocational Training teachers, as well as to establish collaborative relationships with companies, especially when VET is structured in a theoretical and practical part. “For that practical part we need companies and it is a way for them to know us and see what our students know how to do through exhibitions and competitions,” he said.