Chen Xiaochun

654789759@qq.com

A TOTAL of 11 students from different schools in Guangdong Province attended the 1st Guangdong Skills Competition and the Guangdong Selection Contest for the 46th WorldSkills Competition (WSC) held at Shenzhen Polytechnic. The contest kicked off Saturday and lasted until yesterday.

Ye Danming, chief judge for this contest, Chief Expert of Hotel Reception in China for the 45th WSC and founder of Ye’s Education & Culture Tourism, said China has started to participate in the WSC since its 41st edition. In 2015, with hotel reception as a newly added competition event, China also sent a delegation to compete in the event for the first time.

“Guangdong pays special attention to the WSC and has obtained great achievement in recent years. In the 45th WSC, China’s delegation fetched 16 gold medals, half of which by contestants from Guangdong. And we are very proud of this,” said Ye during a speech.

According to Ye, though China has around 30 to 40 years’ development in the hotel industry since the country’s reform and opening up, “before we have never participated in this kind of soft power and soft skills contest, which will facilitate the development of our hotel industry and of schools focusing on vocational education in this field. So this event is of great significance.”

The contest is a full-English contest that requires contestants to master English communication.

Apart from English communication, Ye stressed the importance of real-life practice. “Most of our contestants are students from schools. They are quite young without real-life work experience. The WSC puts emphasis on socializing skills and the art of communication, which is a challenge for our contestants.”

The WorldSkills Competition (WSC), known as the Skills Olympics, is the largest and most influential professional skills competition in the world.

It is organized by WorldSkills International every two years.