Our colleges are very close to industry and business. It is essential for them to be connected to the labour market because they have to respond to the needs expressed by business. I have often seen companies ready to cooperate with colleges in terms of equipment, for example. When a piece of equipment is very expensive, some companies will provide financial support to make sure that the equipment is the latest. The equipment that students have at their disposal during their college training really is the same as the equipment in use in business.
We are also very creative. Infrastructure is very expensive. In terms of training in the trades, the three colleges in minority situations are quite well equipped. La Cité has a training centre for the trades in Orleans. Collège Boréal in Sudbury has good equipment for training in the trades. A few years ago, the Collège communautaire du Nouveau-Brunswick in Bathurst updated and modernized all the equipment it uses for trades training.
As I said in my presentation, your colleague, Minister Valcourt, was very surprised to see how creative we are.
You are announcing a boom in naval shipbuilding policies for the Maritimes, but how will francophone communities be able to take advantage? In Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia, getting the equipment to meet that need is not possible. We asked ourselves whether there was a creative way to do that. So we established a hybrid, decentralized welding program. The theory part is offered online, but, for the practical part, the colleges are looking to see if students in their areas are near an anglophone college. If they are, agreements will be made with the anglophone college so that those students can use the equipment at times that are reserved for them. If no such college exists, the agreements will be made with companies so that the students can do their practical training there. They can do welding in a large company, for example.
This makes a lot of sense. Employers are able to judge the potential of future employees. When the time comes to hire recent graduates, those employers do not have to agonize over the decision. The company internships that the colleges organize greatly facilitate post-graduation hiring. The employers can see the students and that is why, at college level, the student placement rate is excellent. If they see good candidates, they will not waste their time with newspaper, TV or online advertisements, they will hire the student doing an internship with their company.
This hybrid training, whether by distance learning or “in person” in companies or other colleges, is a new, creative way to meet the needs of the labour market.