[:en]Canada’s Building Trades Unions, along with SkillPlan, BC Colleges and the Social Research and Demonstration Corporation, are pleased to announce the Enhancing Pre-Apprentice and Apprentice Training Tools Project.  Funded by the Ministry of Employment and Social Development Canada, through the Skilled Trades Awareness and Readiness Program, this exciting project will work to support our 14 affiliated Building Trades Unions and their affiliated trades school through the development of pre-apprentice and apprentice learning tools and resources. The aim of the project is to enhance existing pre-apprentice and apprentice programming to better support Red Seal success for all learners.

Building Trades Unions and training organizations will directly benefit from project outputs including:

• Customized entrance Essential Skills assessment for each construction trade to identify their potential apprentice’s readiness to enter technical training;
• Accompanying preparation guide aligned to each individual trade designed to support candidate success;
• Customized teaching resources to support struggling apprentices with learning their technical theory, individualized for each trade; and
• Training resources made available both online and in print.  

Invitation to Participate in the Pilot Study  

To date, an initial needs assessment was conducted with participating unionized training providers and their affiliated trades schools, as well as pre-apprenticeship training organizations which provided invaluable information to support the development of training resources.

We are now inviting participants to support the Pilot Study Phase in Summer 2020.

We invite you to support the project by implementing the resources and providing feedback on the pre-apprentice and apprentice learning tools and resources.  We are looking for active participants, department heads and/or trades instructors, who will engage in the input stages, review and provide input on material development, and test the resources and tools in training environments.

To learn how you can become part of this exciting project, please contact the project team at: info@skillplan.ca.

About the Partners

SkillPlan was formed in 1991 to provide Essential Skills solutions to address learning challenges in the construction industry. SkillPlan serves 14 international building trades more than 500 employers and numerous private and public technical training institutions. SkillPlan’s team have worked with thousands of apprentices over the years with many of these apprentices being Aboriginal participants.

BC Colleges is an association of British Columbia’s public, post-secondary colleges. The role of the organization is to work closely with businesses, government and key stakeholders regarding partnership, investment and public policy, and to facilitate collaboration between the colleges so they can more effectively produce a well-educated and highly skilled workforce for British Columbia.

The Social Research and Demonstration Corporation is a non-profit research organization, created specifically to develop, field test, and rigorously evaluate new programs. SRDC’s two-part mission is to help policy-makers and practitioners identify policies and programs that improve the well-being of all Canadians, with a special concern for the effects on the disadvantaged, and to raise the standards of evidence that are used in assessing these policies.

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