WorldSkills Sweden

Through a large national competition and exhibition event every two years, hundreds of Sweden’s most professional young people compete and measure their strengths against each other in around 50 professions. During three intensive days, schools and the general public are offered free access to the event.

Since 1995, the Swedish National Skills team has represented Sweden in a large number of European Championships and the World Championships. The team is unique. All with completely different professional orientations, all specialists in their field. All good role models and important ambassadors for Swedish vocational education.

EuroSkills competition lets Europe’s most skilled young professionals compete in different fields. Young people up to the age of 25 can participate in the biennial European Skills Championship and compete for three exhilarating days.

At WorldSkills, Sweden’s most skilled young professionals compete against their global peers in a range of different fields. Since the first WorldSkills competition in 1950, the event has grown to be one of the world’s biggest competitions in any field.

To reach students of secondary school age with the message that vocational education and training is a smart choice, it is important for there to be models they can identify with. So, who better to tell us more convincingly about the benefits and strengths of vocational education and training than our previous competitors from the national vocational team?

Every year, we conducts two attitude surveys to see how attitudes toward vocational training are trending. The public attitude surveys are conducted every year. Attitudes to Vocational Courses is the second annual survey, which selects young people in year 9 to answer questions about vocational education and training.

YourTalent has been a successful concept for many years, and the aim of the project from the start was to help young people broaden their knowledge about the various upper secondary school courses available – mainly in the run-up to the selection of upper secondary school all year 9 students have to make every year.

The YourSkills concept seeks to stimulate interest in vocational education and training among the newly arrived by providing information and inspiring an interest in training courses, and talking about professional pride and skills. We do this through videos, illustrations and social media advertisements.

In 2020 a new information initiative was launched concerning career switching. At one time or another, the vast majority of professionals have thought about switching jobs and/or industry, and the uncertainty caused by the pandemic has also led more people to consider continuing their education.

The Jobs Tournament (Yrkeskampen) is a contest for year 8 classes aimed at highlighting vocational education and training and inspiring students to begin thinking about future training and job opportunities. The tournament focuses on vocational matters and physical hands-on assignments.

WorldSkills Sweden are conducting several communication campaigns to raise interest in vocational teaching among the already employed. We can hopefully make vocational teaching more attractive by emphasising professional pride in the role. The campaign runs on social media.

Meet a Professional is material that provides schools with a model that allows students to encounter working life in the classroom. The model can be used by teachers and VGCs to create virtual meetings between students and people in working life. The professionals are of course active and past competitors from the Swedish National Skills team”.

Guides are available for schools for various lessons concerning the role of different occupations in society, myths about upper secondary school selection and preparations for work experience and traineeships. These popular lesson guides are available in several languages.