Two SuniTAFE students have come home with gold medals from the WorldSkills Australia National Championships in Melbourne. 

Thomas Bevan, a Certificate III in Heavy Commercial Vehicle Mechanical Technology 3rd year apprentice received gold in the Heavy Vehicle Mechanics category.   

Tristan Bulger, a Certificate III in Wall and Ceiling Lining apprentice received gold in the Plastering and Dry Wall Applications category. 

SuniTAFE Chief Executive Officer Brett Millington was in Melbourne last week to watch the students compete.
"We congratulate Thomas and Tristan on winning gold medals and acknowledge the support of their mentors and teachers, along with all our competitors and their support teams" Mr Millington said.  

The WorldSkills Australia National Championships was held last week, from 17 to 19 August at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre and is the biggest trades and skills competition in Australia.  The three day event saw 500 selected regional competition winners compete across 50 skills to showcase and benchmark their skills. 

The event aims to get Australia's young people excited about skills and trades and growing Australia's skills culture.  

Five SuniTAFE students competed in the competition across the Plastering, Welding, Construction Steel Work, Heavy Automotive, and VETiS Metals and Engineering categories.  A student from Mildura Senior College, who prepared for the competition with SuniTAFE, also competed in the VETiS Carpentry category.    

WorldSkills presented an opportunity for our students to compete against their peers and showcase the skills they have learned at SuniTAFE. 

"WorldSkills is a fantastic way to showcase not only what our students can achieve but the effort of what our TAFE and the incredible teachers do behind them," Mr Millington said.

WorldSkills Australia is part of a larger International WorldSkills movement, consisting of 82 other countries. Every two years, Australia sends a team of students (The Skillaroos) to compete in the international event which will be held in Lyon, France next year.