Members of the Lethbridge College community and industry partners gathered the morning of September 25, 2023 to celebrate Apprenticeship Day in Alberta. (Photo: LNN)

By Joel Mendelson

Lethbridge College celebrates Apprenticeship Day, provincial funding announced

Sep 25, 2023 | 3:58 PM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – Members of the Lethbridge College community and industry partners gathered on Monday, September 25, 2023, to recognize the valuable contributions apprentices make toward the growth of the economy. Monday marked Apprenticeship Day in Alberta.

Sheldon Anderson, Dean for the Centre of Trades at Lethbridge College said, “Apprentices are probably the most unrecognized part of the education system.”

Anderson noted that apprentices spend 80 per cent of their time learning on the job and 20 per cent of their time in technical school.

He added, “While they’re in technical school, they’re in class from 8 to 4 [every day], taking on a lot of information. And it’s all a lot of pressure because their livelihood depends on them being successful.”

Michael Starkes, marketing manager at Southland Trailers said, “Apprentices are vital to Southland. We’re continuously growing, we’re about to open plant six, so that’s 100 more employees we need from the Lethbridge area and you can’t just pluck those out of the air, so you have to develop them.”

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He explained why apprentices are so vital to Southland Trailers.

Starkes, “We’re big on apprentices because they bring in that outside the box thinking, they know what’s happening in their world, and then they come into our world, and we always say if you’re moldable and motivated we have an apprenticeship for you. They are vital to keeping Southland growing and our products having continuous quality improvements.”

“When it comes to apprentices, we’re always hiring, we’re expanding a 90,000 square feet plant six. I need 100 welders, I’m not going to find 100 welders in the area. We can bring them in from other parts of the province and country, but we really want to bring in those apprentices, because they come in, and they learn the Southland system right away.”

GOVERNMENT FUNDING

On Monday, the Government of Alberta announced a new investment in apprenticeships.

The Alberta government announced a $12.4 million investment, which will create nearly 2,000 new apprenticeship seats across the province, in order to meet growing demand for highly skilled tradespeople.

This funding is in addition to the $15 million over three years that was announced earlier this year, which has already created 1,000 new apprenticeship spaces, making the total funding for apprenticeship training to $54.4 million in 2023-2024.

READ MORE: Lethbridge News Now.

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