Basic skills honored and rewarded

Shanghai has offered generous bonuses for winners in the 45th WorldSkills Competition.

Ten contestants from Shanghai participated in nine categories in the competition in Kazan, Russia, from August 22-27, winning two golds, one silver and three other prizes, the best results for Shanghai in an event known as the “Olympics of skills.”

Lu Yiwei, 19, from Shanghai Urban Construction Engineering School, won gold in floristry, and Xu Aomen, 20, a teacher at Yangpu Vocational and Technical School, won another in auto body repair. 

Xiao Zitong and Feng Zhutian, both 23 and master's students at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, won silvers in Internet security, while Zhang Zaijie, Wu Jiani and Feng Jiale from local vocational schools, won prizes in print media technology, restaurant service and website design and development.

Shanghia will give 500,000 yuan (US$70,616), 300,000 yuan and 100,000 yuan bonuses to the winners. Their training teams will receive the same rewards. Those who made it to the competition but did not win any medals were given 50,000 yuan each.

The teams at the national-level training bases in Shanghai were given 20,000 to 200,000 yuan, and the schools and enterprises where the contestants are from also got 20,000 to 150,000 yuan of rewards.