On April 22, Sheridan welcomed 17 new students to our STC Campus to begin full-time classes in Level 1 of the Electrical Apprenticeship program. What’s new here is that these are full-time secondary school students enrolled in the Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program (OYAP) in the electrical program at their high school. Students come from several schools in Peel, and will be studying at Sheridan until the end of their high school term in June. While here, they will cover electronics, electrical theory, codes, instrumentation, prints, and installation methods and will spend about 30% of their time in the well-equipped labs and shops here at STC.
This program represents a collaboration between the local Apprenticeship Office, which provides funding through apprenticeship seat purchases, and the School College Work Initiative (SCWI), through which students will be eligible to receive two dual credits when they successfully complete their Level 1 courses. This means that students will receive both high school and college credits for the same course.
Sheridan has delivered dual credit programs since 2005, and currently about 500 high school students participate in dual credit programs each year between September and July. Programs include a wide range of trades (construction, electrical, machining, plumbing and welding) as well as technical offerings delivered through FAST at STC and Davis; Arts, Media and Performing Arts courses offered by FAAD at Trafalgar; Animal Care, ECE, Fitness and Police Foundations delivered by FAHCS at Trafalgar and Davis; and the College’s first dual credit program, a School-within-a-College (SWAC) program delivered by FHASS, offered at Davis beginning in 2005 as Ontario’s first SWAC program, and now running at HMC.
“We’re very pleased to see these OYAP students arriving this morning at STC,” said Alan Reid, Associate Dean in FAST. “Although we’ve offered hundreds of high school students courses from our certificate and diploma programs, this group will be the first to actually enroll in an apprenticeship program. We hope to see many of them back in Level 2 of their apprenticeship once they’ve finished high school and are working as apprentices. Trades offer great careers for students and local employers rate Sheridan’s trades programs very highly.”
For more information about Sheridan’s dual credit programs, please visit our website at dualcredit.sheridancollege.ca or contact the SCWI Project Manager, Chris Pearson, at christine.pearson@sheridancollege.ca.