Free tuition, textbooks and tools to get fresh faces into skilled trades

St. Clair College will host information sessions starting on Tuesday regarding pre-apprenticeship programs as employers try to keep up with an aging and retiring workforce.

School officials say pre-apprenticeship training is an opportunity to help people interested in the trades get the skills needed to enter the apprenticeship system. 

It offers free tuition, textbooks, safety equipment and tools.

“We’ve received funding for this program for the last 14 years,” says St. Clair College’s Tina Fotopoulos.

The Pre-Apprenticeship School of Skilled Trades Manager says the school has submitted proposals for 2022 with the intent of receiving funding this year to run the same three programs that were offered last year.

The Ministry of Labour, Training and Skills Development invested $24 million in pre-apprenticeship training across Ontario in 2021. St. Clair College staff say the proposed programs in 2022 include:

• Brick and Stone
• Truck and Coach
• General Machinist

Fotopoulos tells CTV News each program has approximately 20 spaces available for students.

“The Ministry would like to attract underrepresented groups mostly so people who are unemployed, women, Indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities, youth, however we definitely want to attract anybody into the program. It is a great opportunity for everyone,” she says.

Pre-apprenticeship programs include 17 weeks of in-school Level 1 provincially-approved Apprenticeship Training (1st level of trade school in an expanded format), safety training and other pre-trades training.

A 12 week (420-hour) paid industry work placement follows.

It is open to Canadian Citizens and Permanent Residents and an application package must be submitted for consideration, followed by an interview process.

“I took it and I ran with it and it’s been great since!”

Natasha Topliffe, 24, recommends the program saying she discovered it online after wanting a career change last year.

“It’s an easy fix if you’re not satisfied in your career and you’re looking for a change or you want to start a career in the trades this program is great for it,” she says.

Topliffe explains the cost savings compelled her to try.

“That was my biggest thing was if I’m going to make a career change. I was looking at the costs and if I went to school a realized I wasn’t happy, or struggling to understand the new material, then was it worth it?” Topliffe adds. “With this free program you have nothing to lose.”

“We need to do something and we need to do something fast,” says Jonathan Azzopardi, chairman of the Canadian Association of Mold Makers. “Because apprentices aren’t necessarily making a lot of money for companies when they first start.”

Azzopardi says it’s anticipated 30 per cent of the workforce is expected to retire within five to eight years which could represent thousands of jobs locally.

“The pre-apprenticeship program actually accelerates their ability to be functioning employees,” he says.

According to the president of Windsor-based Laval International, “The faster that we can get them (apprentices) to be regular employees and get them into the stream that we really need to be in, they’ll start to make money, which means we in turn will put more training, more investment and in turn more money in the apprentices’ hands, therefor it’s a win-win situation.”