Funding for skilled trades
Posted Sep 3, 2010 05:58:09 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Fifty women will get their hands on power tools — and a career — at Conestoga College this year thanks to provincial funding.
The province’s Women in Skilled Trades program is investing over $650,000 in the school’s General Carpentry program at the Waterloo campus to pick up the tab for tuition, books, parking and more for the program participants, who come from low-income situations.
Minister of Training, Colleges, and Universities, and Kitchener-Centre MPP, John Milloy, says it’s “very disturbing” that women make up only 2 per cent of apprenticeships in the construction and electrical sectors in Ontario.
April Harris is a Conestoga student who just graduated from her intensive WIST program yesterday.
She says she’ll start looking for a job right away and has no worries about breaking into and working in a male-dominated industry.
She says she wanted to be a carpenter after learning handyman skills from her dad.
The WIST program is also giving over $725,000 for 18 women to take Information Technology courses at Conestoga’s main campus.
