Mission Statement

Our Mission:
To challenge New Zealand to achieve world-class skills standards by demonstrating excellence in workplace skills competitions for young people.

Our Vision
To run New Zealand's premier work-skill competitions to measure skills excellence.

"We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future" - Franklin D Roosevelt
WSNZ is an independent, non-profit Charitable Trust founded in 1986, dedicated to encouraging young people to excel in vocational skills. This is achieved through exposure to competitions at a Regional, National and International level.

Our aims are to prepare youth for the future, encourage skill excellence through competition, and to give young people the opportunity and environment to better themselves. WorldSkills NZ searches out and recognises NZ's best young skilled people in WSNZ competitions.

The purpose of the organisation is to:

  • Encourage,recognise and reward skill excellence.
  • Raise the standards of skills training in New Zealand.
  • Raise the self-confidence and self-esteem of the young participants.
  • Have New Zealand recognised as one of the highest skilled nations inthe world.
  • Promote Skills Training as a first choice career to school leavers.

WSNZ assists New Zealand youth by providing a model for excellence in industry training and setting goals for young people to aspire to in their personal development. It gives young people confidence, assertiveness, a feeling of responsibility and the ability to seek new challenges within their work.

By running WSNZ Competitions, we can also provide New Zealand companies, polytechnics and other training organisations with consistent performance benchmarks measured against international standards. This enables them to compare training standards around the country against proven international standards.

All of the competitions provide unbiased measures of competency for each participant, thereby meeting the intent of the National Qualifications framework. The marking system (based on international scales) provides consistent means of auditing the training levels that are achieved nationally. Co-ordination of WSNZ competitions is reliant on the national network of 700+ volunteers who give hundreds of hours of their own time. WSNZ has recently recognised some of our volunteers for their 20 years support and service to our organisation.

Our Objectives:

  • To build the standard of our National skills to the highest international levels, thereby serving the need for skilled workers in New Zealand.
  • Upgrade the status of skilled persons in New Zealand by improving public awareness of skills and promoting the worthiness of skilled vocations as a first choice career.
  • Evaluate our training systems against the world's best and to encourage those involved in skills training to participate as Judges at International Competitions.
  • Improve training standards by encouraging use of the latest methodsand technologies.
  • Raise the profile of the International Organisation 'WorldSkills' in New Zealand
  • Increase the opportunity for New Zealand youth to participate in WSNZ competitions and demonstrate skills in action to prospective school leavers.

Secondary School Students
On average over 1000 students have attended WSNZ National competitions to see first hand the wide range of skills on display. They are also able to collect career pathway information available at exhibition sites.