Kangan Batman TAFE plastics students come out tops
19 June 2002
Trevor Sheahan.
At the Plastics Pioneers Career Developments Awards ceremony held on 19 June 2002, two Kangan Batman TAFE students came up trumps, winning the Career Development Award and a Special Commendation Award.
The students have received the accolades from a key plastics industry organisation, the Plastics Pioneers. Trevor Sheahan and Zekai Berke, submitted applications for the prestigious Career Development Award that is offered (but not necessarily awarded) annually by the organisation.
Trevor Sheahan from Broadmeadows, took out the Career Development Award. Trevor is in his second year of a plastics New Apprenticeship and has also recently been named Kangan Batman TAFEÂ's Trainee of the Year.
Trevor was not always into studies, he left high school early, part way through his Year 11 at the age of 16.
“I wasnÂ't enjoying school and my attendance was pretty bad, so mum and dad said I could leave school if I found a good job,” Trevor explains.
Trevor is a trainee technician at Sneddon & Kingston Plastics, a company which manufactures plastic components such as those used in vehicle interiors.
At 16, Trevor was the youngest person ever to be employed at Sneddon & Kingston Plastics, but he says the company is now considering hiring other young people.
Trevor has also been a high achiever in the formal training component of his traineeship, for which he has received two student awards from Kangan Batman TAFE: the Trainee of the Year Award, and the Outstanding Achievements Award in the Plastics New Apprenticeship.
Trevor is currently a semi-finalist in the Victorian Training Awards, in an exhaustive selection process that finishes in August.
Trevor has recently completed his off-the-job training in Kangan Batman TAFEÂ's new state-of-the-art Polymer Engineering Centre, which is based at the instituteÂ's Broadmeadows campus.
Trevor went to TAFE one extra night a week because he wanted to finish his course early. It generally would take from three to four years to complete, but he finished it in three years.
Having completed his traineeship studies, Trevor is now undertaking the diploma in polymer engineering at Kangan Batman TAFE and plans to continue on to the new advanced diploma after that.
Zekai Berke from St. Albans, took out a Special Commendation Award. The judging panel were so impressed with ZekaiÂ's achievements in full-time study, together with his career aspirations that they awarded him an extraordinary Special Commendation Award.
“When I first came to Kangan Batman TAFE I was not sure what I wanted to study. I wanted to explore all my options. The polymer course interested me, because I had enjoyed chemistry in high school so I decided to take on the Certificate IV in Polymer Technology,” he says.
Having completed the course, he is now studying a diploma course in polymer technology as well as doing a course in plastics tool design.
Some of the attributes that have helped win Zekai the award include him being a role model to his fellow students. According to his teachers, he is often found helping out his classmates in his own time. As he is one of a few students in his class who speak English fluently, he often stays back after class to explain things in detail to those students having difficulty understanding the course.
This is not the only award that Zekai has won. Last year he won the Individual Training Award of the Manufacturing Learning VictoriaÂ's, Industry Training Awards.
Zekai also won the Kangan Batman TAFEÂ's Best Student of the Year Award for his Certificate IV in Polymer Technology in 2001.
