New Westminster high school students are benefiting from an industry-wide push for trades apprenticeship.
These training opportunities are rolling in because of the sheer amount of development and number of retirements the province expects.
According to B.C.s latest Labour Market Outlook projections, there will be over a million job openings in the next decade, mostly thanks to retiring workers, and 83,000 of them will be in the skilled trades. The Ministry of Education is funding dual credit-training because of the demand, with an assist from SkilledTradesBC.
“Pretty much every level of government and the ministries within the government are focused on meeting the demand and trying to be creative about how to meet that demand, just because we have so many people retiring and more building and manufacturing than ever before,” said Tammy McArthur, district career co-ordinator for New Westminster schools.
Currently, 14 New Westminster high-school students are pursuing their trades training in the last months of their Grade 12 year. “So, they get high school credits for it, and college credit….and the school district pays the tuition,” McArthur said.
In this district-wide trades-training program, which stayed open through nearly all stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, students have the option of taking plumbing, electrical or carpentry programs, as well as other kinds of trades. Two Grade 12 students are currently studying aircraft maintenance at the British Columbia Institute of Techology.
McArthur said one former New Westminster student who took the plumbing track and went on to get a Red Seal certification, a standard trades-certification recognized across Canada, now takes on New Westminster students at the plumbing company he runs.
At New Westminster’s April 11 school board meeting, however, board members noted that program merely provides an option for students, rather than locking them onto the trades track for life. McArthur also said she tells students to see this as a stepping stone for other opportunities, and one of a variety of career choices.
“We have some students who are going into engineering at university but really want to have that hands on knowledge as well as being able to work in the summer,” she said.
Students are prepped for the demands of the training, and McArthur keeps in regular contact with them during it. The program is fast-paced with rigorous standards, but she said students are too immersed in the work to feel the weight of such intense training at a young age.
“Honestly, I don’t even think they realize what they’re doing, in the sense (of) ‘I’m going to college eight months early,'” she said.
For more information about the dual-credit training program, visit newwestschools.ca or email [email protected].
