Ontario Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne – and newly appointed Minister of Advanced Education and Skills Development Mitzie Hunter – toured St. Clair’s year-old Regional Skilled Trades Training Centre on February 15, meeting with students, and learning about the facility’s innovative “Earn While You Learn” format.
As noted in a recent Scene story (http://stclair-src.org/news/need-know-news/one-candle-party-trades-centre), the Centre had been founded a decade ago as a private-sector training base by the city’s Valiant Corporation.
It was turned over to the college by Valiant in January of 2017 when company Chairman Emeritus Mike Solcz decided that St. Clair would be able to expand its enrolment to benefit more students – and more local industries that are in desperate need of highly skilled machinists.
St. Clair maintained Valiant’s “Earn While You Learn” format. The two programs housed at the centre are for youth aged 18 to 29. The Introductory Trades Training program includes six weeks of in-class workplace readiness training at the Centre, followed by 26 weeks of shop-floor training with a local employer. Another program includes six weeks of in-class workplace readiness training, and 36 weeks of intensive shop-floor training at the Centre. Under both programs, students receive a college credential and a certificate from the Canadian Tooling and Machining Association when they graduate. The in-school portion of the program includes math skills, safety training and blueprint-reading classes. The shop-floor components see students exposed to numerous devices of state-of-the-art equipment, including CNC machines.
In addition to watching the students in action and conversing with them – and with now-working grads – Wynne and Hunter met with local factory owners who have been providing on-the-job training opportunities to the students, and hiring them upon the completion of their studies.
The Premier and Minister described the program as “brilliant” on several occasions during the tour. They marvelled at both the innate affordability of the educational format, and its integral role in helping to close the “skills gap” for young tradespeople.
St. Clair President Patti France, Board of Governors Chair Dan Allen and Training Centre General Manager Mike Ouellette told Wynne and Hunter that more students could be enrolled, and factory-owners said more trainee-employees could be engaged – both locally and across the province – if the government invested more capital funding to construct and expand Earn-While-You-Learn facilities.
POST-STRIKE CHAT
Also during the tour, Wynne and Hunter had the opportunity to reflect upon the five-weeks-long faculty strike during the first semester with St. Clair student leaders Colin Topliffe (Vice-President of Student Life of the Student Representative Council, and Student Rep on the college’s Board of Governors) and Karen Markovich (President of the Student Athletic Association).
While regretting the frustratingly long duration of the work-stoppage, and the fact that approximately ten percent of the autumn’s student population withdrew from the college due to its inherent complications, Markovich said she believed those who remained “have become stronger students”.
Topliffe suggested to the Premier that, in the future, student leaders should have “some sort of presence at the negotiating table, even just as observers”. That would help to ensure that both labour and management are constantly pressured to keep talking constructively, “in the best interest of students”.
Wynne was interested in that idea, although she didn’t fully commit to it …
… But she did say the government was considering the implementation of a “mechanism” for the college system (similar to that which exists for elementary and secondary school contract talks), which would see a settlement method automatically implemented if a strike dragged on beyond a few weeks. (Presumably, by that, she meant an “action deadline” of something less than five weeks.)
Later on the 15th, Wynne was at another St. Clair facility – the Skyline Room of the Centre for the Arts – staging one of her “town hall” meetings to hear about regional and provincial issues from local citizens. Her fact-finding tour is part of the lead-up to the unveiling of the provincial government’s 2018-19 budget within the next month or so, and the Ontario election in early-June.
