Schooling Minister visits competent trades faculty internet sites in HL&A

Education Minister Stephen Lecce produced a check out to Hastings-Lennox and Addington on Wednesday, June 14, 2023 to verify out some brag-worthy instruction selections in the location.

Hastings-Lennox and Addington (HL&A) MPP Ric Bresee characterised the visit as “fun,” stating it was “great to do some exhibiting off” of the regional students, their perform, and the packages accessible at educational facilities in the using.

In the early morning, Lecce visited Limestone District University Board (LDSB) pupils in the Creating Design Internship Program at their development internet site in Amherstview, and expressed that he was “incredibly pleased” to be meeting with pupils.

Bresee also expressed appreciation for the group of pupils, who he described as “excited to be performing on [building tiny homes for the unhoused]. They are offering back to the community… outside the house the classroom, and undertaking factors with their arms.”

Bresee was impressed by the application designed at Ernestown Secondary University and run by instructor Dan Fisher with the support of John Armitage and Brookland Great Properties.

That system can make a “huge work toward [assisting] college students who would not or else complete their training in many conditions, [to] have the spots that they’re comfortable with,” Bresee observed. “And it was great to see it is a blend of youthful guys and youthful women of all ages we all know that we want a lot more tradespeople in this province… This is the upcoming of our trades sector.”

Bresee additional, “Minister Lecce has been completely steadfast in recognizing that the status quo hasn’t often worked, that we require to continue to move forward and go on to innovate, to find methods to get extra students far more good results. We know that regular methods have been there, and they’ve worked for a lengthy time, but they haven’t worked for all people. And so he’s extremely proud of the experienced trades side of the Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Software and matters of that mother nature.”

Bresee noted that he believes students have an critical position to play in the foreseeable future of the driving. “I’m truly developing four distinctive Citizen’s Advisory Panels, one particular of them remaining a Youth Advisory Panel. And we’re pleasing to the significant faculties, such as all the schools where our college students are going, even if they’re not in the riding.” He gave the case in point of Holy Cross Catholic Large University in Kingston, which requires in a selection of HL&A students in spite of remaining situated just outside the house the driving.

In the afternoon, the visitors took in some lessons at Napanee District Secondary University, which include the Small and Recreational Engine course. School Trustees and senior faculty directors joined the tour and Bresee described a great volume of conversation about “some of the factors we will need.”

He famous, “There is incredible help from our neighborhood group from the community corporations [for the apprenticeship programs] but we just can’t proceed to count on that support as a foundation-level funding product. We have to have to have full assist for the gear and the materials needed particularly for those people tech programs.”

“You can have 30 students in a math course, and the textbooks [are reusable] calendar year soon after 12 months. There’s not a good deal of materials for that math course, for that English class, and so forth.,” he commented. “A tech software can’t have 35 college students in a woodshop, and can not have a woodshop with only $300 a year in materials for that class.” 

“[Minister Lecce] is also very very pleased of the funding that we’ve set into the specific wants programs and the additional sources about the college systems,” Bresee stated.

“We are choosing as quick as we can. We’ve extra hundreds and hundreds of staff members to the ministry’s whole, if you will,” he said, noting, “it’s always a tiny hard in that it is the faculty boards that are the immediate businesses. So there are several parties associated here.”

Lecce’s check out was organized just after Bresee participated in an function termed “Get your MPP to University Day.” Bresee spoke about that expertise, noting, “I got a chance to tour that website, and some web pages around at NDSS as well… and I was so psyched and so very pleased of what we’re doing below in this region that — I really did — I needed to exhibit it off to the minister. He’s always searching for people excellent-information tales to display off the successes of the programs that we’re working on. So I was capable to bend [Lecce’s] ear and get them down right here to see what we’ve carried out.”