Young apprentices fare well in Durham region

The Ontario Youth Internship Apprenticeship program that starts high-school students on apprenticeships in the metal-working trades has been well received by Durham area businesses. At Rouen Tool & Mold, Grade 10 and 11 students were doing the work of first-year apprentice moldmakers during the summer months.

Paul Rouen, president of Rouen Tool & Mold Ltd. (Ajax, Ont.), is on the program’s local action committee and has hired apprentices through the program for several years.

“There are some real stand-out students in this program. The success rate (of students continuing their apprenticeships) is 95 percent.

“For some students, their maturity level is not as great as it would be if they were 18 and had finished high school, but what they lack in maturity, they make up for in enthusiasm,” says Rouen.

“The program is giving them career direction, which they aren’t getting from their high schools.”

At Rouen Tool, the students are doing drilling and tapping tasks, squaring mold blocks, working on lathes, and even manufacturing parts of molds under the supervision of journeymen moldmakers.

As part of the program, students go to college for two eight-week periods for beginner and intermediate metalworking training, and work for two summer placements at machine shops while they complete their normal school curriculum in Grades 11 and 12.