By Benjamin Aubé
Wednesday, December 17, 2014 9:29:46 EST PM

It's a new partnership between Thériault, Collège Boréal and the Conseil scolaire catholique du district des Grandes Rivières (CSCDGR) which has allowed students a chance to gain their first level of carpentry apprenticeship training, all while collecting credits towards their high school diploma.

This year's students unveiled a garage at École catholique St-Gérard, which Thériault construction teacher Richard Beaulieu explained was built thanks to the dual credit carpentry program offered through the partnership with Boréal.

"The students this year will get dual credits, and an opportunity also to seize on Part 1 of the construction apprenticeship levels," explained Beaulieu, who has supervised the work over the first semester of school. "There's three levels, and if they do complete them, they'll be Red Seal (builders) and they'll be able to work anywhere in Canada, and anywhere in the province for sure."

With the CSCDGR providing funding for materials, the new shed at St-Gérard will be used for general storage for items such as snowblowers, machinery and other school equipment.

Collège Boréal's president, Pierre Riopelle, said that dual credit programs such as this one "help secondary students make a successful transition from high school to college and allow students to gain great insight into education and career-planning options."

Jean-Pierre Nadon, Boréal's Timmins campus director, praised the teamwork involved in the program.

"It's a great example of the partnership that exists between the school board, the high school and the post-secondary level," said Nadon. "The students have something to practise on, and this is the end result."

Even in the past without the dual credit program, local high school construction students have helped build a number of impressive and useful structures throughout the community over the years.

"We built the garage to contain the buses at (Thériault), which is a 30-foot by 40-foot garage with 12-foot-high walls and three garage door openings. It was a very large project," explained Beaulieu.

"As far as going out and doing projects in the municipality ... we've also worked at La Ronde in the cultural centre, doing all the staging there. There have been other projects at different individuals' homes, seniors we were able to help as well. It's been going on now for about eight years.

"The students are here from about 12:15 to about 2:45 p.m., then back to the shop to change and so on. But through the projects, we did have a couple of evenings where we were here until 9 p.m."

Many of the students on hand said they were in the construction program because they were interested in the field and planned to continue on in the future.

However, Beaulieu explained that even those who choose another path will be better off with the skills they've picked up through the program.

"Some of them will continue, but even if they don't pursue a career, these are key knowledge pieces in life and society today, to be able to build something for yourself, or do renovations at home," he said. "Through the course, there's electricity, plumbing, and it's the whole gamut of construction. They're getting additional knowledge in different fields as well.

"They'll be able to use it for the rest of their lives."

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(c) Timmins Press