Astana hosts Republican Technical and Vocational Education Development Championship WorldSkills Kazakhstan

December 3–7, 2018, the 4th WorldSkills Kazakhstan Championship is taking place in Astana. To participate in the event, 350 college and university students of 30 specialties arrived from all regions. The winners of the competition will represent Kazakhstan at the international championship in Kazan next year.

The four-day national championship runs through 30 skills and is aimed at improving the quality of technical and vocational education. The event was organized by the Ministry of Education and Science in conjunction with the Kasipkor holding.

Deputy Chairman of Kasipkor Asima Bimendina reported that the national championship is being held in Kazakhstan for the fourth time: the republic joined the WorldSkills International movement in 2014, a year later the first championship was held.

“There are a lot of events that take place in our capital, but today's event occupies a special place, because young people participate in it — college students, future specialists, whom we prepare for various sectors of the country's economy. I want to say that the qualification of the participants is growing every time. The role of vocational education is increasing every day,” said Bimendina.

According to the organizers, students from all 17 regions of the republic take part in this championship. In each competence, the main experts give participants a competitive task.

The chief expert in Kazakhstan among culinary arts, the founder of the restaurant complex S. Adilkhanov, who stood at the origins of WorldSkills Kazakhstan, noted that holding this competition has a positive effect on the development of domestic technical and vocational education.

“After the national championship, we went to the international championship in Brazil. Then (2015) we had only seven competencies. This was the beginning of Kazakhstan’s path in this movement. Tellingly, in the competence ‘Cooking’ the participant, for the first time taking part in the World Championship in Sao Paulo, brought Kazakhstan a medal. This is a big victory, as 74 countries participated and we entered the top 30 for ‘Cooking.’ In four years, the status of the movement has increased, now there are more than 30 competencies. We visited the Russian Federation, Belarus, participated in the EuroSkills in Budapest. Our participants are showing very good results on the world stage,” said Adilkhanov.

The venue of the event is divided into 30 sectors, where all the necessary conditions for the demonstration of skills are created. For example, the kitchen for cooking has equipment that meets international standards. In the sector "CNC Turning" modern machines are installed.

The representative of the Kasіpkor holding, the manager of the sector "Turning" A. Bozhenov said that everything is automated on these machines. Participants need to simply program the machine for a specific part, according to a drawing that the commission will offer them. Then the machine automatically performs the action to create the part.

“This machine frees people from heavy mechanical work. People who have programming skills can easily master the work of a machine tool turner. If earlier this required heavy physical labor, now everything comes down to the skills of programming and maintaining the machine. This is a rather complicated technique, to work on it you need to know many specialized programs. We now have 10 participants from different regions. These are the best professionals, many of them were trained in Moscow. Now the production is being automated. If we want our production to correspond to the world level, then we need to develop this direction,” said Bozhenov.

Contestants, in turn, shared their views on the importance of the event. This year a corner of the hotel business is presented at the site for the first time. A fourth-year student of the College of Industry, Tourism and Hospitality M. Bolgarina said that all the tasks of the championship allowed them to show the skill of working with the public.

“Our competence has not yet reached such a level as, let’s say, hairdressing, cooking, because tourism, hotel business, service in Kazakhstan is only developing. At the WorldSkills site, the hotel business was introduced for the first time. When you work in a real hotel, you can feel the person, you can find an approach to her. For this, in college we are taught psychology, identifying the type of a person’s temperament, how to approach him, what he wants,” said Bolgarina.

The championship takes place in 30 skills: “Brickworkб” “Painting and Decoratiтп,” “Pâtisserie and Confectionery,” “Electronics,” “Hotel Administration,” “CNC Turning,” “Web Design and Development,” “Graphic DesignTechnology,” “Maintenance and Repair of Diesel Engines," “Network and System Administration," “Fitter-Repairman of Agricultural Machines and Tractors,” “Mechatronics,” “Electrical Work,” “Visual Merchandising and Showcase,” “Repair and Maintenance of Cars,” “Plumbing and Heating,” “Restaurant Service,” “Engineering Graphics,” “Body Repair,” “Mobile Robotics,” "Hairdressing,” “Fashion Technology,” “Determining Grain Quality of and its Processing Products,” “Welding Technologies,” “Tiling,” “Dry Construction and Plastering,” “Cooking,” “Baking,” “Maintenance of Refrigeration and Ventilation Equipment,” “IT Solutions for Businesses.”

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