Sudbury MPP Rick Bartolucci announced $1 million Thursday to improve various trades programs at College Boreal.
The money will go towards carpentry and electrician programs, as well as the new bricklayer and stonemason program which will start next September.
Boreal president Denis Hubert said the money will be spent to renovate classrooms so they can act similar to a workplace.
“We will be trying to develop a revolutionary way of delivering the trades programs where I want to mimic as much as possible the actual industrial environment," said Hubert. "As a millwright, electrician or plumber, you will be working with colleagues in an industry environment."
“Why can't we replicate that in a schooling environment? The advantage is we can move away from having fixed structures and have more flexible structures.
"We can see future tradespeople look at their future colleagues and how they're working in the different trades.”
Boreal wants to double the number of people it trains for the trades, and the new funding helps with that objective, said Hubert.
Tradespeople are desperately needed in Ontario, said Bartolucci.
“This one-time investment of $1 million is going to go towards trades development,” he said. “College Boreal again shows its leadership potential by meeting the needs of the present and the future.
"This is going to be a job-creator, obviously, and is going to be meeting the needs of industry in a real way.”
Second-year industrial electronics student Justin Charbonneau said the new provincial funding for his program will be good for the entire city.
“It will increase the amount of opportunities for everyone,” he said. “The more graduates you have, the more chance of the people staying here. More companies will be interested in coming here and constructing our infrastructure because our graduates are here.”
Charbonneau said the classroom renovations are badly needed because there isn't enough space to learn about electronics. He also wanted to see some of the money go into new equipment.
Charbonneau said he is pretty much guaranteed a job when he graduates. There are 10 people in his program.
“The demand is pretty high right now. You've been hearing that a lot lately.”
