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Navy, college join forces
THE CHRONICLE-JOURNAL
03/04/2009

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Confederation College is joining the navy.
Or more accurately, it‘s joining the list of Canadian colleges training the country‘s sailors.
On Tuesday, Confederation College and military officials signed an agreement that will see newly minted naval electronics technicians train at the college.
Students interested in the program will enrol with the Canadian Forces and then attend the electronics engineering technician program.
The military pays for tuition, books and equipment, and pays students a salary on top of that –$31,000 the first year and about $38,000 the second.
Students will work and train on either the west or east coast during the summers and then work for the military for three years after graduation.
Basic training, or boot camp, comes during the first summer.
“And if they want to, they stay on,” said Capt. John Gardam, who heads up maritime training and education for the Canadian Navy. “Statistically, we‘re starting to find that they want to and they stay on.”
Gardam described it as downloading the general theory and training to community colleges. The navy then finishes the students‘ training with military-specific equipment after graduation.
“The trades we‘re recruiting into are very, very popular on the outside,” said Gardam. “We‘ve suffered over the last few years a great decline in the numbers (of technical trades) in the military because there are very high-paying professions on the outside that take them right away.”
Confederation College, one of 24 colleges in Canada to have the training agreement in place with the navy, has similar programs with the army and air force.
Students can still attend the navy‘s training schools in Halifax and Esquimalt, B.C., but by using college programs, the navy is expanding its capacity to train new members, Gardam explained.
It‘s possible for students already in the first or second years of Confederation College‘s electronics engineering technician program to join the Canadian Forces, and they‘ll be reimbursed for the time they‘ve already spent in school, said Gardam.
On Tuesday after signing the program agreement, Gardam swore in two students enrolled in the program into the Canadian Forces.
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