Cornish college tutor honoured with international skills accolade

A Cornwall-based college tutor has been honoured by a European skills body for making an outstanding contribution to education in the UK. 

WorldSkills Europe, a non-profit member organisation that promotes vocational, technological and service-oriented education and training across Europe, recently announced their accolades for 2021. 

Greg Houghton, curriculum area manager for sport and military at Duchy College Stoke Climsland, was named for ‘outstanding contribution to raising standards in skills and training’ by the organisation. 

He commented: “I am honoured to have been recognised in this way. WorldSkills is a fantastic organisation that supports young people across the world through competition-based training, assessment and benchmarking. 

“I am proud to be involved in helping young people gain confidence and supporting them as they prepare for rewarding, yet challenging, careers.” 

Greg has been a WorldSkills UK team leader since 2016 and was praised as an “instrumental part of Team UK” by supporting the needs of the country’s experts and competitors at international events. 

Speaking about his involvement with WorldSkills, he added: “I teach a lot of sports methodology, supporting young people who are taking part in skills-based competitions.  

“I also look after the pastoral side of things at the bootcamps held across the country as well as when students travel for international competitions.  

“We do activities in the evenings such as reviewing the day, resetting goals and looking at our emotional control levels. These help remove the additional stress and let students focus on the skill.” 

Greg has been teaching sport and outdoor education for more than 11 years, working across colleges, coaching sports teams and more recently using that knowledge and applying it from a sports background to a vocational skills environment, with the main focus on competitions. 

Students at Duchy College, part of The Cornwall College Group (TCCG), continue to benefit from Greg’s work with WorldSkills UK, through getting the opportunity to meet specialists from UK sport who visit the campus, spend time with the students and share their experiences. 

Parisa Shirazi, head of skills development at WorldSkills Europe, said: “It is great to see such hard work and commitment rewarded by our peers across Europe. The winners are amazing coaches and role models for young people and the awards reflect this. We look forward to continuing to work with them all in the future as they continue to play a critically important role in supporting work in using our competitions-based training programmes to raise standards in teaching and training.” 

TCCG continues to see significant investments in its facilities and student experiences across the 10 campuses in Devon and Cornwall.