Conner Rousseau crowns West Flemings as winners of the country’s largest carpenter’s competition

875 students from 58 schools from all over Flanders took part in the competition. The students from the wood or joinery specialization in the second and third grade of secondary education (BuSO / BSO / TSO) were given one day to make a piece of work that they did not know beforehand.

This year the assignment was to make an irregular wooden table. The piece was designed so that the students had to use different woodworking techniques (both manual and machine) and work with different types of wood.

Awarded by Rousseau

A professional jury of experienced carpenters then evaluated the pieces of work and announced a winner per province. The winners advanced to the second part of the competition, in which pieces from all over Flanders were compared. Vooruit chairman Conner Rousseau handed over the trophies to the winners per field of study throughout Flanders. (BuSO / BSO / TSO).

Attention to practice

With this competition, the Confederation of Construction – Flemish Joiners wants to draw attention to the importance of practical lessons. Due to the corona pandemic and the many part-time distance learning, students have missed many practical hours in the past two years. And that’s not a good thing, as students’ practical skills have been declining for years. The profession of carpenter has long been one of the bottleneck professions in Flanders. Joiners have the greatest difficulty in finding trained, skilled personnel.