‘Albert Vidal Award’ in News

The Albert Vidal Award is a prestigious award, named after the founder of WorldSkills International (formerly known as the International Vocational Training Organisation).

During the first thirty-one WorldSkills Competitions (formerly known as the Vocational Training Competitions), Francisco Albert-Vidal, from Spain, was responsible for the achievement of the original goals in a changing world: 33 years as an untiring promoter in his position as Secretary General and seven years as President of the International Organisation constantly presenting new ideas.

The Vocational Training Competitions became his life’s work and the International Organisation was shaped into what it is today.

In memory of Albert Vidal, the Award recognises the Competitor that achieves the overall highest score out of all Competitors in all Skill categories.

The Albert Vidal Award is connected with the implementation of the 500 mark system, developed by former WorldSkills President Cees Beuk, after the WorldSkills Competition 1985 held in Osaka, Japan.

The new system was developed upon the request from the Technical Committee Chairman René Gonthier and his vision of making the Competition scores more comparable and universal.

With the new system, it became possible to compare the scores from skill to skill and from Expert to Expert within each skill, making their scoring behaviour more transparent. The new system became effective in 1988 (when the WorldSkills Competition was held in Sydney, Australia) at which the ‘Best of the Competition Award’ was introduced for the first time.

After Albert Vidal’s death in October 1993 the Award was renamed (proposed by Tjerk Dusseldorp, past President, WSI) from the ‘Best of the Competition Award’ to the ‘Albert Vidal Award’ in order to honour the contributions of Albert Vidal for his decades of devotion to the WorldSkills movement. The new name of the award, first became effective in 1995 when the WorldSkills Competition took place in Lyon, France.