NEWRY: Haldane Fisher is one of the sponsors of Skillbuild NI. Skillbuild NI is held annually each spring, with the top local construction apprentices competing to win titles in twelve construction craft areas ranging from brickwork to wall and floor tiling.
The winners may go on to represent Northern Ireland in the UK Skillbuild Finals and potentially the UK at WorldSkills.
Catherine Bell, deputy secretary for the Department for Employment and Learning said: “Skills competitions help to encourage excellence and raise standards of training. With the recent success of Northern Ireland competitors at WorldSkills London, the quality of our professional and technical training is recognised worldwide. The Skillbuild NI competition allows our young apprentices to demonstrate that they have the high level of skills which our economy needs to stay competitive.”
David Cooper, chairman of Skillbuild NI, said: “The Skillbuild NI national competition is a superb event which enables participants to benchmark themselves against their fellow competitors in NI. The next WorldSkills event is to be held in Leipzig in Germany in the summer of 2013 and we are hopeful we can achieve the same outstanding result that NI competitors achieved in 2011. We had the best medal haul of all the UK regions, with a gold medal in bricklaying, silver in landscape gardening and a bronze in refrigeration and air-conditioning. Two out of the three WorldSkills medal winners progressed to this stage via Skillbuild NI which first showed their potential of talent within their trade.”
