Essential Skills Projects
Name of Group Title of Project Description
PEI Provincial Apprenticeship Board and Workplace Education PEI   Workplace Education PEI in partnership with the PEI Apprenticeship Board and West Prince Health, developed and delivered an 80 hour program for 16 cooks in the West Prince Area. The program was designed to provide workers with the opportunity to refresh their essential skills and knowledge in preparation for writing the Red Seal examination.
Portage College Aboriginal Workforce Capacity Expansion Project (AWCEP) The project was initiated by Portage College in Lac La Biche and Alberta-Pacific Forest Industries. It is a 37 week, pre-employment program aimed at increasing the number of Aboriginals directly employed in Alberta's resource-based industries. Although aimed at direct employment, there is an apprenticeship element in that students received pre trades study in math and science and were given the opportunity to write the Alberta pre trades entrance exam at the end of the course.
Preparatory Training Programs of Toronto Building for the Future: Using the LBS Matrix and Outcomes to Develop Pre-Apprenticeship Programs for the Construction Industry Preparatory Training Programs of Toronto (PTP) will work with construction apprenticeship programs to develop three workbooks within the Literacy and Basic Skills (LBS) matrix for literacy learners with employment goals in this area, and to create a specific pre-apprentice LBS path. The workbooks, which will be developed based on input from partners such as the Local 27 Carpenters Union, The Labourers International Union of North America and The Terrazzo Tile and Marble Association of Canada, will include reading, writing, and math activities related to pre-apprenticeship, as well as an instructor's manual, lesson plans and instructor notes. The activities and demonstrations will be designed with a step-bystep approach to make it easy for any practitioner to include realistic tasks in their pre- apprenticeship programming. Pilot training sessions across the province of Ontario will be held to familiarize literacy program staff with the materials, demonstrations, and the LBS skills required to enter each of the apprenticeships. This project will result in a model for collaboration between community-based literacy programs and industry and labour-based apprenticeships. Feedback from the pilot tests will be used to measure the project's effectiveness.