Following on from the announcement that EuroSkills Graz is being rescheduled for September 2021, Dr Neil Bentley-Gockmann OBE, Chief Executive, WorldSkills UK said:
“Following careful consideration of the information provided by the boards of WorldSkills Europe and EuroSkills Graz, we have taken the difficult decision not to participate in the rescheduled EuroSkills Graz competition which is due to take place in September.
“We believe there is still too much ongoing uncertainty, with a changing situation in terms of Covid security, to be able to commit now to participate.
“We have a duty of care to our competitors and we are aware that the ongoing restrictions means that our Team UK members might not be able to prepare fully, in sufficient time, for the event. We are also aware that we may face further controls regarding international travel, and we are not in a position to commit public funding to take part when we could face further disruption.
“Instead we will focus our international training programmes on participating in WorldSkills Shanghai 2022. Key to this will be ongoing skills benchmarking and pressure testing against European and global partners virtually, and alongside the competition activity, sharing of best practice and insights to help inform policy and practice on mainstreaming excellence in the UK.”
