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CANADIAN INDUSTRY ONLINE - MAY 2013
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Herzing College (since 1965) in On-
tario, Manitoba and Québec contin-
ues to partner with businesses in the
health care, the IT and other sectors
to help find and train the right em-
ployees.
•
Collège Salette in Montréal has since
1942
partnered with advertising
agencies to help train the right de-
sign students.
•
Eastern College in Atlantic Canada
has worked with a large payroll
company to help students better
understand the skills required to be
hired and grow within that organi-
zation. The same college partnered
with Ocean Steel and Construction
Ltd. to provide students workplace
opportunities when they enrolled
in a Steel Fabrication/Welding pro-
gram.
These are all examples of success-
ful partnerships between career col-
leges and businesses.
Businesses had a need. Career
colleges had a solution. Now the gov-
ernment will inject money directly to
help businesses become increasingly
involved in the process.
The $500 million per year should
help.
The recognition that this should
be for short-term training is also im-
portant.
An opportunity ... but to do what?
The federal government did not
release all the details of its Job Grant.
But it did start a consultation process
through which businesses and other
stakeholders will be able to have a say
in how the program will be imple-
mented in 2014.
We can see some things that businesses
should request:
•
Limit the red tape! When it costs
more money and time to fill in an
application and respond to the de-
mand than the actual benefit you get
from a grant, everyone is frustrated.
•
It should be employer-driven. If
this is done to respond to em-
ployers’ needs, then it should be
employer-driven. What does this
mean? Simple: employers should
be in charge when it comes time to
decide which training programs are
to be funded and how they should
be designed. They should be able to
work directly with the post-second-
ary educational institutions (prefer-
ably career colleges) to design the
training program.
•
Start as soon as possible. The fed-
eral government announced this
new grant in the 2013 budget. There
is no reason to delay the start of this
grant past the April 1st, 2014, time-
line (when the next budget kicks in).
Consultations are good, but they
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