New Brunswick high school students can now get more hands-on learning experience in operating heavy equipment.
The province has teamed up with the New Brunswick Road Builders Association for an enhanced co-op program.
“With many skilled-trades people leaving the workforce over the next few years, it is critical that we encourage our youth to step up and fill the void left by those who are retiring now and, in the future,” Post-Secondary Education, Training and Labour Minister Trevor Holder said in a news release.
Students will spend three weeks doing classroom work followed by six weeks in a mobile simulator training centre. Each student will have their own simulator to learn how to operate skid steers, backhoes and wheel loaders.
The final nine weeks of the semester will be spent in the field, practising what they have learned.
The province contributed $150,000 to the New Brunswick Road Builders Association, who invested $300,000 in the program by designing and donating a mobile classroom.
“The mobile simulator training centre will provide high school students across the province with an introduction to heavy-equipment operating as a viable career option, while expanding their learning experiences,” said association president Randy Chase.
The mobile classroom is starting at Woodstock High School and will move to a different school each semester.
The anglophone sector of the Department of Education already has three enhanced co-op programs in fields with high labour market demands, such as the long-term care and early childhood learning sectors.
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