By Dessa Bayrock (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: January 30, 2013
As part of a provincial spending spree this month, the BC government donated $621,701 to go towards state-of-the art equipment at UFV’s Trades and Technology Centre (TTC) last week.
“Trades are a practical way for people to make a living,” stated Chilliwack MLA John Les in a news release on January 24. “This funding will help improve trades programs at the University of the Fraser Valley, and will give students even more hands-on experience that they can take with them to their jobs.”
John Yap, the Minister of Advanced Education, Innovation and Technology, was also on-site to oversee the donation.
“This provincial investment, coupled with contributions from private industry partners, will ensure students are training on the same calibre of equipment their employers will be asking them to work on after graduation,” Yap noted in the same release.
The equipment UFV plans to buy with this funding includes a plasma table and a diagnostic engine bench.
Rolf Arnold, the director of trades and technology training at UFV, says this equipment is necessary to keep trades students up-to- date with the industry.
“The plasma cutter is a computerized burning tool for cutting shapes out of metal,” Arnold explains, “from pink flamingos to brackets for a particular piece.”
The plasma cutter will automatically make the most efficient use of the metal.
“We do have a burning table now, but it has a very limited range of things we could do with it,” Arnold says.
The diagnostic engine bench is another learning tool that UFV will be purchasing with the funds. Arnold explains this will allow automotive students to see the inner workings of a car in a way they wouldn’t be able to in a normal workshop scenario.
This donation comes at the end of a spending-heavy month for the BC government as part of the BC Jobs Plan and Skills and Training Plan: Vancouver Community College, Trinity Western University, and Vancouver Island University all received donations in the neighbourhood of $1.5 million, similarly to buy new equipment.
The BC government also pledged $113 million to Emily Carr University of Art and Design to help build a new and larger campus.
