Students at Ponoka Composite High School will be working with new and upgraded equipment in the near future thanks to a substantial grant given by Skills Canada Alberta and the Alberta Government.
The one-time funding grant of $312,389.57 will be used to improve the school’s Career and Technology Studies (CTS) to help better students and allow them more opportunities.
PCHS principal Ian Rawlinson believes that the grant is a large step to enhance what the school offers and that the money will go to a much needed area.
“This grant is huge for the school,” he said. “Our equipment that we have right now is dated, it’s really old. We don’t have the funds for this area in the school so that’s why getting this grant is so monumental.”
Rawlinson and the CTS educator’s team applied for the grant in the fall of 2007 for the amount of $298,000 and submitted it to Skills Canada. PCHS not only received this amount but was given an extra $13,467 because of the high quality of their application and because of the districts recognition of the importance of the CTS programs in the school.
The grant is only part of the tri-Ministry initiative “Connecting Learning and Work: Alberta’s Career Development Strategy.”
The upgrading and replacing of current CTS equipment will include state of the art and industry standard equipment. Rawlinson is pleased that PCHS will be receiving good quality equipment and will give students an advantage in their jobs after school.
“It will benefit students and open up new areas for them to explore,” he said. “It will expand the number of modules opened to students. It will all be industry standard equipment, it’s not cheap quality, it’s what they are using in the working world.”
Most of the equipment will be completely replaced in mechanics, fabrication, construction, cosmetology and foods. The grant will also help carry out new programs such as new design, animation and communications technology, web and architectural design for the 2008 and 2009 school year.
Rawlinson trusts that these programs will enhance the school and motivate students as well as benefit Alberta as a whole.
“It really broadens what we are trying to do here,” he said. “The grant is part of the initiative to keep students in school and address the shortage of trades in the province. It gets more kids involved in trades and gives the high school the equipment to help them do that.”
The grant will not only benefit the students at PCHS but will also be made available to students from the Ponoka Outreach School.
“The Ponoka Outreach School will have access to our facilities as well,” he said. “The grant benefits beyond us, it expands the boundaries. It’s expensive to maintain and we want to have many kids making use of this.”
Rawlinson looks forward to seeing the results of the grant and believes it will benefit a lot of people.
“Receiving this grant is great,” he said. “It will give kids of Ponoka the best they can get.”