B.C.’s comparatively tardy foray into LNG has resulted in a better-late-than-never recognition that all post-secondary institutions, especially universities, need to move toward job training, including skilled-trades preparation.
Since 2009, 24 Australian technical colleges have been preparing for the country’s emerging and rapidly growing industrial needs. All are now integrated into existing education and training systems, with some continuing as stand-alone independent schools. They deliver vocational courses to high-school students, predominantly 16- to 18-year-olds.
B.C. comes late to the LNG party, both with proposals for development and a rediscovered need for trades training. Facilities are planned at Prince Rupert and Lelu Island, which, according to the government, will initially generate up to 3,500 construction jobs and, after that, 200 to 300 jobs to operate the facilities. A Kitimat facility is also planned.
Because of the uncertainty about B.C.’s eventual role in the already-busy LNG field, there is some hesitation on the part of at least two of B.C.’s major universities about seemingly rushed government plans to partly shift the orientation of those universities toward some skilled-trades training.
Those long involved in trades training believe this is better late than never, because trades training has not, until now, been as high on B.C.’s priority list as it has in Australia.
Earning a tradesman’s certificate for a young Australian is a celebrated achievement, surpassing, in some cases, pride in an undergraduate degree. Having come from an Irish-Australian family of builders and bricklayers, I can tell you it’s a cultural thing.
Trades training in B.C., has been hindered by the attitude of many parents and the lack of substantial incentives to employers to participate in apprenticeship training.
Until now, a majority of parents of high-school kids hold university aspirations for their offsprings and tend to regard trades-training courses in high schools as a lesser choice to academics.
Education ministers over the years have tended to emphasize academic rigour over shop courses.
Alberta, meanwhile, has become the gold standard for apprenticeship training. That is understandable, because the oil industry continues to need certified tradespeople, and Alberta continues to produce them at double the rate of other provinces.
According to a report commissioned by the B.C. Construction Association and the B.C. and Yukon Construction Trades Council, the Alberta system is successful because it has been both industry-driven and government-implemented.
Whether or not B.C.’s wish to avoid a major capital commitment to secondary and tertiary training systems (and trades training requires constant updating of expensive equipment in schools) changing the directions of post-secondary education will provoke much discussion.
The traditional role of universities will become a central issue for the next while as the province scrambles to find ways to provide the technical training needed based on the politics and realities of LNG hopes.
There is no question that some changes in program emphasis for universities are justified.
In a time of declining school enrolment, our universities continue to graduate about 1,800 bachelor of education teacher trainees for jobs that don’t exist.
On the other hand, every labour-market assessment indicates a serious need in B.C. for more doctors, dentists, nurses, optometrists, chiropractors and health technicians.
Universities can and will play the major role in meeting these needs.
It is late in the day to be rediscovering a need for trades training in B.C. but not too late. In rejigging funding allocations to B.C.’s universities toward trades skills, however, let’s not go for the quick fix to the detriment of the province’s long-term needs.
Geoff Johnson is a retired superintendent of schools.
