THE final countdown is on for 10 TAFE Illawarra teachers and students who are making final preparations to represent Australia at the 2015 International WorldSkills Competition in Sao Paulo, Brazil from August 11-16.
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The group of experts and student competitors joined together for a special Australian uniform presentation on Thursday at TAFE Illawarra Wollongong's Auditorium.
The five competing Illawarra students are Nowra's John Reminis in bakery; Berrima's Sam Spong in bricklaying; Willow Vale's Nicholas Roman in joinery; Gerringong's Matt Sawers in the manufacturing team challenge and Farmborough Heights' Kallon McVicar in welding. TAFE Illawarra's chief experts are Wollongong's Troy Everett for bricklaying and Shellharbour's Paul Condron for welding, and experts Farmborough Heights' Martin Bezzina for the manufacturing team challenge; Flinders' Peter Buttenshaw is deputy chief expert for industrial millwright and Figtree's Herve Boutin for baking.
Troy Everett, Regional WorldSkills chairperson and chief expert of the bricklaying competition, said excitement and nerves are growing.
"The competitors have been training for over 12 months now, and intensely over the last three months. For some competitors, they have given up their jobs to focus on their training.
"For our experts, it's been an equally intense year of preparation. We've been working on developing the competition framework for our respective fields - challenging when you think about what goes behind bringing together industry standards from over 70 countries."
