A new marine fitter course has been added the trades programs being offered at School District 42 thanks to a generous donation to the British Columbia Institute of Technology, (BCIT).
The Dennis and Phyllis Washington Foundation, in conjunction with Seaspan and Southern Railway of BC, donated $5.527 million to BCIT to establish a new Trades Foundation for Youth Program which will see technical training at four high schools in four different communities for in-demand skilled trades.
Programs will be offered to students in Grades 11 and 12, in piping, electrical, metal fabrication, and marine fitting.
Samuel Roberson Technical’s Metal Fabrication program will have the Marine Fitting component added the the course.
This will remove barriers to students taking the Metal Fabrication program, said Brad Dingler, trades and apprenticeship coordinator for SD42, noting the money will cover things like tuition, text books and travel costs for the next seven years.
“The cost of the program was becoming prohibitive. Because of our location and ongoing costs,” explained Dingler, noting the program has room for 16 students per year.
He explained there are big costs to bus students between the shared campuses – in the school district and the post secondary institutions. Transportation costs alone was crippling the program, making it unsustainable to operate as students have to be bussed for seven weeks to the BCIT campus in Burnaby specifically to complete the metal fabrication program. Now another three weeks has been added for Marine Fitting.
And, he added, not only will this money broaden the scope of the Metal Fabrication program, it will provide necessary skill sets for the province in a growing marine industry.
Students will begin their training early – learning about the ship building process, how to assemble and repair ship structures, help build ships, outfit ships, erect hull blocks, and more.
Seaspan, a company that builds ships, repairs them, and converts them, in addition to providing tug and barge services and commercial ferry operations from Vancouver Island to the Lower Mainland, has work lined up through 2035 and beyond through federal contracts alone to build vehicles like polar ice breakers, two joint support vessels, marine patrol vessels for the coast guard, amongst other things.
The program will provide the students with more job-ready skills, said Dingler, especially for students who may face challenges getting into the trade.
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It will also increase the overall skill set for the province and the community, he added.
“Anytime that we reduce barriers and provide more options for students in the trades is a win/win for the economy locally and provincially,” said Dingler.
“Forming partnerships with post-secondaries, industry, and secondary schools is key to increasing trades people in the province,” he said.
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SD42 trades program also received a boost from the province. The Ministry of Education and Child Care gave the district a grant of $100,000 for a new Health Care Unit Clerk Certificate program which will be run in partnership with BCIT.
And another grant of $50,00 was given to the district for a Early Childhood Education Assistant program run in partnership with Ridge Meadows College.
“What we are doing as a district is we are trying to move more into the dual credit options for high school students,” Dingler explained, where, he said, instead of the trades they are partnering with a post secondary institution for academic credits.
Dingler noted the donation to the Metal Fabrication program is likely the single biggest donation that they’ve received from BCIT.
“This really has been a lifeline for our program in our metal fabrication. It’s phenomenal for the kids, it’s phenomenal for us and it’s addressing a need in the industry that was never there, the marine industry,” he said.
