Sixteen students from Golden Secondary School will be receiving some education from outside the high school at the College of the Rockies first ever Intro to Trades Program to be offered specifically to secondary students.
“This year Iris Trask (principal of GSS) and I got together and thought it would be really great to run this program for the high school,” said Karen Cathcart, manager of the college’s Golden campus.
They worked together, and were able to offer a program dedicated specifically to the high school’s senior students (Grades 11 and 12) after Golden Secondary School purchased 16 seats for its students.
“I’m very happy about this,” said Cathcart. “The Intro to Trades Program is set up so that the students learn the knowledge and skills of the construction trades.”
They learn skills from six different trades including carpentry, construction, electrical, plumbing, welding and timberframing. They also walk away with certifications in first aid, transportation endorsement, traffic control, fire suppression, transportation of dangerous goods and many more.
“So this program allows the students to get a really good overview of the construction trades so that they make a more educated decision as to what trade they would like to pursue,” said Cathcart.
“The other thing this program does is make the graduates market, employment ready.”
There is a growing demand for tradespeople in Canada and in Golden, but there tends to be a gap between training and employment. This is one way the College of the Rockies is trying to bridge that gap.
“So all of these things go onto their resume, and when an employer looks at that resume they’ll see that this candidate is coming to them fully vested with all this certification, and they’re more likely to hire them because they don’t have to pay for all that training,” said Cathcart.
The 16 seats for the program filled almost immediately, and there is already a wait list. One of the reasons is that students will get to work directly with tradespeople and employers right here in Golden.
“We hire our local tradespeople to deliver the program, and they do a fabulous job. We’re very blessed that we have the quality of journeypeople in this community that we do, and that they’re so passionate about what they do.”
One of the first projects the students will be working on will be repainting job with Wendell Johnston. They will spend time scraping and painting the Kicking Horse Country Chamber of Commerce office building as a community service project.
“That will be a nice community development project, and one more thing to put on their resume,” said Cathcart.
The program will fit into the GSS schedule, and will run from September until February 2014. If the first class goes well, the college is looking at making it an annual program.
