WorldSkills UK Grant - Benchmarking the UK's Technical and Vocational Education and Training System

Organisations are now being invited to apply for grant funding to run the WorldSkills UK programme from 2023.

The period of grant funding will be for 2 years initially from April 2023 to March 2025 with the possibility to extend. It will be awarded to a single bidder or consortium and the current level of expected funding is a maximum of £13.4m for the 2-year period.

In 1953 the UK government established the WorldSkills UK programme as the Governments representative in WorldSkills International, representing and working on behalf of the UK's Technical Vocational Education & Training (TVET) system to gain maximum insight and to raise standards in the UK TVET system. The Department for Education (DfE) has grant funded a non-government organisation to operate as WorldSkills UK (WSUK) in recent years.

The DfE wants WorldSkills UK to use the UK's membership of WorldSkills International and WorldSkills Europe to support raising both awareness and the national standards of technical and vocational provision. International skills competitions occur every year with upcoming competitions scheduled in Poland 2023, Lyon 2024 and Herning 2025.

Team UK's performance in future international Skills competitions and individual colleges' and competitors' performances in the national skills competitions should act as a barometer for the progress being made in transforming our Further Education sector to a world class standard.

We require the organisation operating as WorldSkills in the UK to use their access to international best practice and cutting-edge technical content and distribute it to young people, businesses, employers, training providers, educational establishments and their workforce. This is to support raising their standards and quality of technical and vocational provision.

Additional information: Applications for this grant close on Friday 24th June 2022. Evaluation of applications and selection of the successful applicant will take place swiftly after to allow sufficient time to prepare for the new grant starting in 2023.

Interested organisations wishing to apply for this grant must: 1) Register for a Jaggaer account (DfE's eTendering Portal) here https://education.app.jaggaer.com 2) Go to the live opportunities and select opportunity: ITT:itt_1201-WorldSkills UK Grant. 3) There you will have access to the full application document suite.