- 2022Implementation
- 2023Implementation
- 2024Implementation
Background
WorldSkills rose out of the ruins of the Second World War, which devastated the economies of Europe and created a huge skills shortage that threatened a new economic depression.
Some took this challenge as an opportunity to introduce young people to the world of vocational skills. A skills contest was created for the young in Spain and Portugal, in 1950; since then, Portugal has participated in every competition.
Nowadays, the WorldSkills movement has become much more than an international competition. The organisation is helping young people around the world change their lives through vocational skills.
Objectives
Portugal's participation objectives are in line with those of these skills competitions:
- reinforcing the value of integrating worldwide standards of excellence in vocational training performance;
- enhancing the social status of vocational training, encouraging the recognition of vocational paths as successful alternatives for insertion into working life;
- promoting new technology-based skills, strategic for the development of the economy, according to European and worldwide evolutionary standards;
- contributing to the development of a competitive training environment, through improving methods and techniques of organisation and execution of work;
- developing the values of quality, creativity, autonomy and teamwork to stimulate scientific and technological, as well as social and cultural, exchange among young training technicians, training operators, companies and other entities involved, at European and worldwide levels;
- evaluating, by comparison with other international training operators, the quality of training;
- stimulating, according to international trends, the adjustment between qualifications and the labour market;
- increasing the notoriety of vocational training developed in Portugal in external markets.
Description
WorldSkills and EuroSkills are aimed at all young people aged between 17 and 25 who have completed or are attending a qualification programme in vocational education and training. They aim to demonstrate the individual level of skills, rigour and mastery of techniques and tools for the exercise of each profession in the competition, through practical performance tests evaluated according to demanding criteria and in accordance with internationally established technical prescriptions by juries made up of highly qualified experts (trainers, professionals, entrepreneurs).
These competitions, which aim for wide participation, aim to assess the effectiveness of the vocational training given by the different operators and, simultaneously, to induce factors of increasing quality, innovation and creativity in the teaching-learning processes.
The competitions take place every 2 years and bring together those with the best scores in the national selection phase:
- pre-selection (local): aims to identify the best competitor of each entity, by profession;
- regional: includes the candidates selected in the pre-selection phase and aims to identify the regional representative(s) by profession;
- National: aims to select the best national competitors in each profession.
The competitors of the national phase are candidates for participation in the European and world championships of the professions, organised by WorldSkills Europe and WorldSkills...
WorldSkills and EuroSkills are aimed at all young people aged between 17 and 25 who have completed or are attending a qualification programme in vocational education and training. They aim to demonstrate the individual level of skills, rigour and mastery of techniques and tools for the exercise of each profession in the competition, through practical performance tests evaluated according to demanding criteria and in accordance with internationally established technical prescriptions by juries made up of highly qualified experts (trainers, professionals, entrepreneurs).
These competitions, which aim for wide participation, aim to assess the effectiveness of the vocational training given by the different operators and, simultaneously, to induce factors of increasing quality, innovation and creativity in the teaching-learning processes.
The competitions take place every 2 years and bring together those with the best scores in the national selection phase:
- pre-selection (local): aims to identify the best competitor of each entity, by profession;
- regional: includes the candidates selected in the pre-selection phase and aims to identify the regional representative(s) by profession;
- National: aims to select the best national competitors in each profession.
The competitors of the national phase are candidates for participation in the European and world championships of the professions, organised by WorldSkills Europe and WorldSkills International, respectively.
The Institute for Employment and Vocational Training (IEFP) has the responsibility to organise the national phase and to represent Portugal in WorldSkills and EuroSkills.
This measure is part of the NIP under the umbrella of package Internationalisation.
Portugal competed in the 2022 international WorldSkills competition in 12 different skills, with 13 competitors and 12 experts, joining more than 1 000 young people from 63 countries, who in total took part in 60 different competitions organised in 26 cities around the world. It achieved the following results: gold medals in Industrial Design - CAD, and Cooking; silver medals in Refrigeration and Air Conditioning and Industrial Control and medals of Excellence in Industrial Mechatronic, Welding, Beauty Therapy and Hairdresser.
Portugal's 45th National Championship of Professions, SkillsPortugal 2023, took place from 7 to 12 March 2023 at the Portimão Arena under the theme 'The professions and sustainable development goals'. More than 400 qualified young people participated.
The highest-scoring medallists at the event had the opportunity to represent Portugal at EuroSkills Gdansk 2023 in Poland in September 2023 and classified for WorldSkills, to be held at Lyon (France) in September 2024.
Portugal closed its participation in EuroSkills Gdansk 2023 on a high note, recording a performance of excellence, achieving more than 700 points.
With a team of 18 competitors taking part in 15 professions, the Portuguese team came 7th in the country ranking and brought Portugal 3 silver medals (graphic design; milling; mechatronics), 2 bronze medals (Industrial control; industrial design) and 6 medals of excellence (Automobile mechatronics; hotel reception; refrigeration and air conditioning; restaurant/bar service; welding; fashion technologies).
At Worldskills Lyon, Portugal competed in 12 different professions, with 13 competitors and 16 experts, achieving Medals of Excellence in: Mechanical engineering CAD, Welding, Industrial control, Automobile technology, Restaurant service, Refrigeration and air conditioning, Graphic design technology and Hotel reception.
Bodies responsible
- Institute for Employment and Vocational Training (IEFP)
Target groups
Learners
- Learners in upper secondary, including apprentices
- Young people (15-29 years old)
- Learners with migrant background, including refugees
- Learners with disabilities
Education professionals
- Trainers
Entities providing VET
- Companies
- Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)
- VET providers (all kinds)
Thematic categories
Governance of VET and lifelong learning
This thematic category looks at existing legal frameworks providing for strategic, operational – including quality assurance – and financing arrangements for VET and lifelong learning (LLL). It examines how VET and LLL-related policies are placed in broad national socioeconomic contexts and coordinate with other strategies and policies, such as economic, social and employment, growth and innovation, recovery and resilience.
This thematic category covers partnerships and collaboration networks of VET stakeholders – especially the social partners – to shape and implement VET in a country, including looking at how their roles and responsibilities for VET at national, regional and local levels are shared and distributed, ensuring an appropriate degree of autonomy for VET providers to adapt their offer.
The thematic category also includes efforts to create national, regional and sectoral skills intelligence systems (skills anticipation and graduate tracking) and using skills intelligence for making decisions about VET and LLL on quality, inclusiveness and flexibility.
This thematic sub-category refers both to formal mechanisms of stakeholder engagement in VET governance and to informal cooperation among stakeholders, which motivate shared responsibility for quality VET. Formal engagement is usually based on legally established institutional procedures that clearly define the role and responsibilities for relevant stakeholders in designing, implementing and improving VET. It also refers to establishing and increasing the degree of autonomy of VET providers for agile and flexible VET provision.
In terms of informal cooperation, the sub-category covers targeted actions by different stakeholders to promote or implement VET. This cooperation often leads to creating sustainable partnerships and making commitments for targeted actions, in line with the national context and regulation, e.g. national alliances for apprenticeships, pacts for youth or partnerships between schools and employers. It can also include initiatives and projects run by the social partners or sectoral organisations or networks of voluntary experts and executives, retired or on sabbatical, to support their peers in the fields of VET and apprenticeships, as part of the EAfA.
European and international dimensions of VET
This thematic category covers both European and international cooperation in initial and continuing VET, aimed at promoting EU VET systems as a European education and training area and making it a reference for learners in neighbouring countries and across the globe.
Expanding opportunities and increasing participation of VET learners, young and adult, and staff in international mobility for learning and work, including apprenticeship and virtual and blended mobility, account for most initiatives in this thematic category.
Apart from established and financially supported EU cooperation, VET opens up to cooperation and promotion of European values and national practices beyond the EU, which is becoming a trend. This thematic category also encompasses internationalisation strategies, transnational cooperation projects and initiatives – including those where joint VET programmes, examinations and qualifications are developed – and participation in international skills competitions that promote the image of VET. Using international qualifications – awarded by legally established international bodies or by a national body acting on behalf of an international body – in the national VET systems and recognising them towards national qualifications is also in focus.
This thematic sub-category refers to developing internationalisation strategies supporting a strategic approach to international cooperation in VET and lifelong learning, including going beyond the EU.
This thematic sub-category refers to cooperation with other EU countries and beyond in preparing national teams for international competitions such as WorldSkills and EuroSkills and participation in those.
European priorities in VET
VET Recommendation
- VET as an attractive choice based on modern and digitalised provision of training and skills
Osnabrück Declaration
- European Education and Training Area and international VET
Subsystem
Further reading
Country
Type of development
Cedefop, & ReferNet. (2025). EuroSkills and WorldSkills challenges: Portugal. In Cedefop, & ReferNet. (2025). Timeline of VET policies in Europe (2024 update) [Online tool].
https://www.cedefop.europa.eu/en/tools/timeline-vet-policies-europe/search/43510