SkillPlan - Build Your Skills

Building from the success of the Enhancing Pre-Apprentice & Apprentice Training Tools (EPATT) project, SkillPlan and its partners, BC Colleges, Canada’s Building Trades Unions and the Social Research and Demonstration Corporation have developed a more structured, integrated, accessible and adaptive online training and support system that offers a curation of educational resources and supports to address apprenticeship challenges. Working in partnership with trainers and industry experts across Canada, we developed training tools and resources to support pre-apprentices and apprentices, trainers and employers across all skilled trades. Both programs are funded by Employment and Social Development Canada.

The Build Your Skills online Learning Hub offers a variety of tools and resources including formative assessments, step-by-step explanations, videos, tips and strategies, practice exercises and a variety of interactions to keep learners engaged – and everything is trade contextualized.

The program has a learning platform and curriculum resources that supports instructors, pre-apprentices and apprentices, including diverse and underrepresented groups, by offering improved program design and delivery on the apprenticeship journey and better supporting Red Seal success for all learners.

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The Build Your Skills approach to apprenticeship training includes:

  • Providing the right tools, supports, and evaluations to address Essential Skills / Skills for Success development with pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship programs;
  • Responding to the unique learning and Essential Skills / Skills for Success needs of non-traditional learners;
  • Implementing a more effective training model which will increase the success of learners, and will set the foundation for a more cost-effective and efficient training model for the construction industry, which can then be replicated to support other industries, and;
  • Testing and measuring the delivery and training results of structured Essential Skills / Skills for Success tools and resources integrated in training programs and sharing these results amongst training partners to inform and contribute to better practices and outcomes on a larger scale.

Join the over 10,000 users in the Learning Hub across Canada in union training schools and their affiliated training providers, colleges, high schools and community organizations supporting pre-apprentices and apprentices.

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BC Colleges' Partners

Logo - Government of Canada Logo - SkillPlan Logo - CBTU Logo - SRDC

SkillPlan - Formed in 1991 to address skills challenges in the construction industry to improve apprenticeship training and outcomes in the skilled trades. SkillPlan is considered one of the leaders in Canada for pinpointing foundational skills’ challenges and designing curriculum and training programs to address these challenges. SkillPlan serves 14 international Building Trades Unions and their affiliated contractors and training providers and supports thousands of apprentices yearly to ensure they succeed in their Red Seal programs.

Social Research and Demonstration Corporation (SRDC) - The Social Research and Demonstration Corporation is a non-profit research organization, created specifically to develop, field test, and rigorously evaluate new programs. SRDC's two-part mission is to help policymakers and practitioners identify policies and programs that improve the well-being of all Canadians, with a special concern for the effects on the disadvantaged, and to raise the standards of evidence that are used in assessing these policies.

Canadian Building Trades Unions (CBTU) - Canada’s Building Trades Unions is the national voice of over half a million Canadian construction workers —members of 14 international unions who work in more than 60 different trades and occupations.