MHC trades gets a small boost

By JEREMY APPEL on November 17, 2019.

jappel@medicinehatnews.com@MHNJeremyAppel

Although the province’s half-a-million-dollar boost this year to Skills Canada Alberta doesn’t directly affect educational institutions, Medicine Hat College’s dean of trades and technology says he hopes it’s a sign of positive developments to come.

The government announced this increased funding, which will bring the total over the next four years to $8 million, on Nov. 7.

Dennis Beaudoin says Skills Canada is a separate entity from post-secondary institutions, however it puts on competitions that students participate in.

“We’re kind of at arm’s-length,” he explained. “Obviously, some of the competitors come from post-secondaries, and then those students do get some help from Skills Canada Alberta.”

But this funding only really kicks in to send students to the national and global competitions after they’ve won the regional and provincial contests.

“What the government has said they want to do is promote skills to get more people into the trades,” Beaudoin said. “One of the ways they’re doing that is using the Skills Canada vehicle to do the promotion to get people into the trades.”

He says he’s anticipating the findings of the government’s upcoming Skills for Jobs Task Force, which he expects to have more of a direct impact on the trades when it reports back in the summer.

“They’re going to look at maybe some of the gaps, some of the challenges that are associated with the trades, and how we can make it easier for Joe Albertan to get into a trade,” said Beaudoin.

He said a pre-employment program is one possible device for students to “re-tool” themselves for a career in a trade.

“They can be a bit costly, so that’s where the tough part comes,” Beaudoin said.

He said MHC has a program to work with the local school boards to bring K-12 students to the college and get them interested in the trades at a relatively young age through hands-on experience.

They spend two hours a week for 10 weeks at the college, where they learn to work on two different trades.

“When those kids do get out of high school, they’re ready to maybe think of getting into the trades,” said Beaudoin. “As soon as they get their apprenticeship, they can come and register at school.”

The problem, he says, is that many companies aren’t hiring on account of the economy.

“If you don’t have a job, it’s hard to get into the traditional apprenticeship model,” Beaudoin said.

Medicine Hat High School principal Boris Grisonich says the province’s funding boost is far too minimal to make a major impact on the opportunities available to high school students who want to get into the trades.

Hat High has a wide offering of trades – welding, mechanics, cosmetology, construction, carpentry, automotives, robotics and culinary arts, among others.

“If all that money was to come to just Hat High, that would be $500 a kid, which sounds like a significant amount of money, but then when you think there’s Crescent Heights, McCoy and Eagle Butte, then you’re down to maybe $250 a kid,” said Grisonich.

“Then when you start adding all the different cities – Lethbridge, Red Deer, Grande Prairie and Fort McMurray – not even including the big centres like Calgary and Edmonton, it’s such a small amount of money going per kid. I don’t know how significant an amount of money it’s going to be.”

He says it would be preferable if the government provided a funding boost to schools in general, which they could then allocate according to their students’ needs.

22
-21