A $1.5 million investment from the Province in vocational programs was announced last Thursday by education and training minister Ian Wishart.

"These investments will enable high school students to train with the same equipment used by industry and prepare them to work in their chosen fields when they graduate," said Wishart in news release.

Western, Garden Valley, Borderlands, and Prairie Rose School Divisions all received funding for various technical school courses they offer.

The Plumbing and Pipe-fitting vocational course offered through MCI started in February. Jason L'Heureux wants the students to feel an ownership of program and thereby be more dedicated to learning

For Morden Collegiate Institute (MCI) specifically, $108,688 was given to the school's welding program and recently opened plumbing and pipe-fitting program taught by Jason L'Heureux. The money will be split 70-30 with the lion's share going to the welding program.

"We were so excited," L'Heureux said about finding out the application was successful. This year, there were many more schools than previous years that applied for the same grant. So L'Heureux had no if his program would be selected.

"We were jumping for joy here," he said, "It was a pretty exciting time."

The Plumbing and Pipe-fitting program began at the beginning of February and already has a dedicated student-base, which is helped by the recent funding. L'Heureux said new, industry-standard equipment and tools bring a "wow factor" to the program which keeps students engaged and will, he hopes, attract new students interested in learning professional trade-skills.

"What I appreciate most are the diversity of options that we offer for students," said MCI principal, Marianne Fenn. Fenn has been the principal for three years.

The funding allows MCI to maintain "the rich level of options" for students coming to MCI, according to Fenn who was grateful to receive the money from the Province.

"Our fantastic teachers and trades programs do a great job of making sure that [the grant] are utilized to it's fullest extent. We see our kids coming out of [the trades programs] more and more prepared to meet the needs of the job market, and we're really excited about that for them."