As much as FErret hearts FE, his one source of frustration about this loveable old sector is that it doesn’t offer too many excuses for him to jet off to far-flung lands.

After a brief period during which overseas expansion was viewed as a vital strategy for many colleges, high-profile struggles in Saudi Arabia and India have led to many opting to focus their efforts closer to home.

Thank God, then, for WorldSkills. Since the competition was held in London in 2011, its stature has grown massively, with Team UK becoming one of the global big hitters in events such as mechatronics and landscape gardening, and recording considerable success at recent competitions such as WorldSkills São Paulo in 2015 and EuroSkills Gothenburg last December. And for skills competition aficionados, there are plenty more WorldSkills (Abu Dhabi 2017 and Kazan 2019) and EuroSkills (Budapest 2018 and Graz 2020) jollies on the way.

But what about EuroSkills 2022? Well, FErret has learned that there’s at least one UK city hoping to host the event. And who’s behind this masterplan? Why, it’s the never-knowingly-understated City of Glasgow College, of course. You remember: the self-styled “super-college” that sent principal Paul Little on a £50,000 advanced management programme at Harvard Business School and splashed out £33,000 on a lavish opening event for its new £66 million Riverside campus.

Anyway, next month the college is holding a glittering reception to promote its bid to host EuroSkills 2022 in Glasgow, with the WorldSkills UK board of trustees among the invited guests. The college is laying on a meal cooked by its own catering superstar, lecturer and MasterChef: The Professionals winner Gary Maclean.

But it seems that Glasgow’s proposal is yet to be rubber-stamped by WorldSkills UK, the body that is responsible for making any bids to host international skills competitions. The official line is that it is currently going through the “due diligence” process to establish whether the UK will be submitting a bid to host EuroSkills 2022 before the May deadline.

While FErret, ever the sun-seeker, reckons that EuroSkills Magaluf has a nice ring to it, let’s remember the impact that hosting the contest on home soil could have.

So here’s hoping that the international skills competition will be making a triumphant return to the UK in five years’ time - whether it’s to Glasgow or elsewhere.

Share your gossip, scandal and intrigue with FErret by emailing ferret@tesglobal.com