Workplace Education Manitoba: Parkland Region – Water Treatment Operator ES Assessment and Training

WEM was asked to build an Essential Skills solution that would prepare Manitoba’s Water/Wastewater Operators in rural and indigenous communities with the Essential Skills they would need to be successful in taking the intensive courses and challenging provincial exams leading to provincial certification.

WEM provides on-site ES assessment to Water Worker Operators working in rural and remote Indigenous communities in the Parkland region, with the goal of helping these operators to prepare for and meet provincial certification levels and ensure communities compliance with provincial water treatment regulations. In many rural and remote communities, water operators are delivering services but may not be certified. Upskilling of water operators to certification levels ensures communities are complying with provincial regulatory requirements and can improve an operator’s potential earnings and reduce operator turn over.

The ES assessment (ESA) is customized to focus on those specific skills related to the occupation of water operator, i.e. technical reading, document use and numeracy. The ES Assessment (ESA) is delivered on-site in the community or participants are brought into a WEST Centre within Parkland region or another site.

The ESA results help identify where skill gaps may occur and results are used to help develop an individual learning plan that will help prepare the operator prior to certification for the intensive courses and challenging provincial exams.

While ES assessment is available upon demand to all communities, the majority of participants are Indigenous with the majority coming from Metis communities.