Thompson Rivers University is getting a cash injection of two million dollars to provide training in the trades for indigenous students.

The money is part of the Canada-BC Workforce Development Agreement for trades programs for Indigenous students throughout the province.

TRU’s Dean of Trades, Baldev Pooni, was on the NL Morning News says the program is more in the field than in the classroom. “As a part of that whole training, they will actually be working for contractors and companies to expand their experience and then they will be taken on by apprentices by those companies and will continue on to apprenticeship training and become journeymen.”

Pooni says the program should go a long way to address labour shortages in the province. “What we’re finding is that there’s not enough people being readied and given the training to meet our future needs and that’s where the shortfall is coming from, so government is reaching out to populations that have not participated in this training before so it’s expanding the pool of people.”

Pooni says one point five million will go to Careers in Construction Trades 478 thousand will go to the Heavy Mechanic Foundation Program in Williams Lake.