NDP unveils apprenticeship grant
$1.5 million plan will help offset cost of tuition and other fees
Alvin Garfin knows all too well what it’s like to be an apprentice in Alberta’s current economic quagmire.
A Union Tractor employee for nine years, he and a dozen other employees were laid off in 2015 as Alberta, feeling the full brunt of plummeting oil prices, lurched toward today’s financial mess. He was 55. Not content to just claim employment insurance, he went back to school, enrolling at Northern Alberta Institute of Technology in the heavy equipment technology program in a bid to secure his journeyman certificate and increase his job prospects.
“It was frustrating,” said Garfin, who is now into his third year of apprenticeship training. “You are a qualified mechanic and all of a sudden there’s this sudden downturn in the economy and you get laid off. It’s tough to make ends meet.”
A new $1.5-million grant announced by the NDP government Thursday will help Garfin and 1,500 other apprentices make ends meet under the Apprentice Training Award program.
To be eligible for $1,000 in assistance, apprentices must not be working in their trade, must have successfully completed their first period of technical training and must be registered for technical training at a post-secondary institute.
The money is to be used to offset the cost of tuition and fees in pursuing technical training.
“We know over the last year some apprentices have had difficulty finding an employer or are not finding work in their trade,” said Advanced Education Minister Marlin Schmidt. “This also means that their technical training has been disrupted and apprentices may not be progressing in their training. Continuing technical training is critical to the employability and future prospects of apprentices.”
Ken Bird, a member of the Apprenticeship and Industry Training Board, said the grants are good news for the economy.
“This province needs these apprentices to complete their training,” Bird said. “Alberta’s economy will recover and we’ll need to prepare ourselves today for that diversified economy. In addition, Alberta still has a generation of skilled trades people that are nearing that retirement age.”
Dustin Rurka, a third-year autobody apprentice, was another of the province’s apprentices affected by the economic slowdown in 2015.
“When the economy went down the drain, everything sort of fell apart,” Rurka said. “It’s been really tough lately. It seems like every single time, something comes up, or there is something standing in the way to get further ahead in my chosen path.”
Rurka is looking for work as he wraps up his own training, but no one is hiring.
“It’s like grasping at straws,” he said.