The Construction Industry Training Organization (CITO) has been established by the Industry Training authority (ITA) to oversee the maintenance and development of program standards for thirty two construction trades in the province of BC. To that end we have been working with a Carpentry industry committee to review the current program against the national standards. That work has been completed and the new program was launched last year.
As part of the review process, we looked at the apprentice’s certification requirements and it was determined that the hours currently required to complete a carpentry apprenticeship did not reflect full-time employment for four years. Currently apprentices are required to complete 5,000 work-based hours and 720 in-school hours for a total of 5,720 hours to be eligible for certification as a Carpenter. Using an average of 1,800 hours as a typical full time year, apprentices would be able to achieve the required training and hours in just over 3 years. The committee felt that this was unacceptable and that the trade is too complicated for someone to be competent in less than four years.
The committee is recommending that we increase the apprentice work-based training requirement to 6,480 hours. Adding on the required 720 hours of technical training this would be a total of 7,200 hours or 1,800 hours for four years. This would harmonize the hours required for a carpentry apprenticeship with the four year apprenticeship model. This is also in line with other Canadian jurisdictions.
Please comment before August 14th.
Thank you
Dave Coleman
CITO