Talented 19-year-olds, Gavin Murray and Chris Bailie, who study Refrigeration and Air Conditioning at South Eastern Regional College, have recently been selected to represent the UK at the prestigious SkillFRIDGE competition following a tough two-day event earlier in the year.

The talented duo, who study at SERC's Lisburn campus, will now travel to The Skills Show at the Birmingham NEC in November as the search for the top construction apprentices continues.

Top competitors from across the nation will battle it out for their chance to be crowned best refrigeration and air conditioning engineer in a competition designed to test their practical and theoretical skills to the limit.

-- Advertisement --

Commenting on being selected, Gavin said: "It's quite overwhelming, I didn't expect this at all. Everyone at work and college will be really happy, it makes it all worthwhile when you try your hardest and it all pays off."

SkillFRIDGE is a feeder route for competitors to potentially go forward and represent their country in 2015 in Brazil at the biennial WorldSkills competition – the world's largest skills competition.

Earlier this year, both Gavin and Chris took part in, and were winners of, a two-day-long Inter-Campus Skillbuild competition. The event was one of a series of Skillbuild Northern Ireland Inter-Campus College competitions taking place throughout the province, designed to challenge the ability of apprentices to follow detailed instructions, test skills within tight timeframes, and produce neat and accurate work – all essential requirements for today's construction environment.

(CD/JP)