Investing in a strong future workforce

More than 400 secondary students are sampling a range of Vocational Education and Training study areas at a Charles Darwin University event.

Fifteen VET careers are being showcased to students from Darwin, Palmerston, Batchelor and East Arnhem Land at the two-day Try’a Skill NT event on Casuarina campus, which finishes today.

Students arelearning about minimum entry-level requirements and employers’ expectations of employees, and gained practical, hands-on skills, at the event.

CDU’s NT Consortium member for Try’a Skill, Trisha Mellow, said students would be better positioned to enter competitive workforces once they understood the skills needed to succeed.

“Students need to start thinking about their career well before leaving school,” Ms Mellow said.

“Students need to understand that to be competitive and to understand advancing technology, they must have the ability to undertake further study.”

Included at the event is a commercial cookery station with Hilton Darwin, mocktail-making with Patricia O’Brien-Price Training, and possum and bird house construction with Wildcare.

Titan Plant Hire donated a small digger for the Civil Construction workshop, L’Oreal donated salon-quality hair products for Hairdressing and Norturss Group Companies supported the Carpentry workshop.

Other workshops include Defence Force Recruitment, Tourism, Sport & Recreation, Plumbing, Heavy Vehicle, Marine Industry, Electrical, Refrigeration & Air-conditioning, Automotive Mechanical & Electrical, Metals & Engineering, Hairdressing and Beauty.

Try’a Skill NT will run in Katherine on August 13 and in Alice Springs on September 17-18.

CDU is a member of the NT Consortium and is committed to ensuring our future workforce is informed about the skills needed to open pathways to VET careers. The NT Consortium includes the NT Government, GTNT and the Australian Apprenticeship Centre NT.