Industry, college join to form training model.

• Author: Goodwin, John
• Position: Sudbury - Cambrian College and nickel industry

When Inco approached Cambrian College In 1995 with a partnership proposal to address an anticipated shortage of skilled tradespeople, it set in motion a process that not only brought much-needed equipment and government funding to the college, but also sparked the development of a unique training model that may provide the blueprint for trades training in. Ontario in the 21st century.

The Skills Technology Institute (Sky/Tech) at. Cambrian has developed a creative and progressive approach to apprenticeship training, which sees students who are registered in one of three two-year post-secondary programs sponsored, as apprentices through the college rather than through individual employers.

In addition, due to the $5.9 million in industry donations earmarked for trades-training areas, S 1w/Tech became one of the key components of the college's $25.58-million SuperBuild initiative. A total if $9 million was committed to SuperBuild by industry partners and these donations became the basis for funds through the provincial SuperBuild infrastructure program.

The initial partnership with Inco was later expanded to include Falconbridge and Domtar, and ultimately resulted in both Inco and Falconbridge dosing their training departments and transferring their training equipment to the new institute. While the discussions for the college to take over more of industry's training needs were underway before the SuperBuild program came into existence, expansion of the trades area at the college was necessary to accommodate the donated equipment and the increased enrolment that was anticipated.

John Hood, dean of technology skills and research at Cambrian, says that while the Sky/Tech concept was underway before the SuperBuild funding became available, a lot of things came together at the right time.

"We had been providing training for inco, Falconbridge and Domtar with the existing buildings we had, but it was getting very tough space-wise," Hood says. "Part of the commitment we made when created Sky/Tech was that we would seek funding to get new facilities and luckily the funding came forward from SuperBuild."

An additional 30,000 square feet of shop and classroom space has been added to the existing 58,000-square-foot industrial training centre at the Barrydowne campus. With the equipment donated by industry, the college has been able to equip the new 10,000-square-foot millwright shop and increase enrolment in the millwright program from 25 students two...