Skilled Trade and Technology Week has been ongoing in Saskatchewan, recognizing the trades that keep the province running. The province marked the week to encourage greater interest and investment in an area they believe is crucial for future growth.
“Apprentices and skilled tradespeople are in high demand in Saskatchewan,” said Immigration and Career Training Minister Jim Reiter. “This week recognizes the value that skilled tradespeople bring to our economy and quality of life. These are rewarding, hands-on careers that give people the opportunity to solve complex problems and make an impact on communities across our province.”
For the post-secondary institutions that teach those trades, the work is always ongoing, says Sheena Onrait, Vice President of Communications and Strategic Enrolment for Southeast College.
“I kind of feel like that’s every week at Southeast College. Obviously, that’s one of the big portions of our training, our post-secondary training is skilled trades and technology. We are really fortunate to be able to have the facilities and have fantastic instructors and have the interest in the students to come to our programs.”
“A lot of times, when we’re recruiting to these programs, we go to our local high schools and ask them if they want to come and spend a day in our programs. They really get to experience some of these programs firsthand at our facility with our instructors, with our current students. So I would say that every week is Skilled Trades Week at Southeast College.”
There are a number of programs involved with skilled trades at Southeast College, including power engineering, heavy equipment, transport technician, electrician, welding, and more.
Onrait says they’re always ready to add new courses and branch out to new communities.
“Super excited to be able to offer those courses at our Estevan campus, and then coming up in Whitewood this winter, we have an electrician program there as well. So we’re still accepting applications for that one as well.”
Onrait says that numbers can shift from year to year, and often respond to what’s happening in the local community.
“Trades programs for the most part are kind of cyclical. The interest comes up, the interest goes down. Seemingly, right now, the interest is really up in these programs. That leads us to think we have a strong economy coming up.”
“Especially around Estevan, there’s lots of talk of the retrofitting of the power plants and the building of the SMRs and those kinds of things. So that really leads to a conversation around skilled trades and a conversation around apprenticeship programs and those kinds of things. Typically, when those things start to enter into the picture, we see an uptake in these programs.”
Post-secondary institutions also recently received extra funding from the province, seeing a three per cent increase over the next four years.
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