A group that says it represents more than 50 truck driving training schools is opposed to an Ontario Ministry of Transportation (MTO) announcement asking them to incorporate detailed lesson plans in their mandatory entry-level training (MELT) programs.
The MTO late last month ordered driver certification program organizations and registered career college course providers to clarify how they create and incorporate standardized lesson plan requirements into their curriculum.
Narinderpal Jaswal of A2Z Driving School in Waterloo, who is also the president the Ontario Commercial Truck Training Association (OCTTA) told TruckNews.com that a minute-by-minute lesson plan is fine for in-class training but does not work for practical training.
“Say I have a road lesson tomorrow and the weather is really bad. How can I implement the lesson plan?” he asked. If an inspector visited his school that day, he wanted to know if he would be in violation of the plan.
The updated curriculum, including lesson plans, must be resubmitted to the Ministry of Colleges and Universities (MCU) by July 1. In the province, truck driving schools must be registered as career colleges.
In a bulletin, the ministry stated that it has developed a new sample lesson plan template as a guide that meets standard requirements which will provide an additional resource to help ensure consistency and quality.
Road conditions, traffic challenges
OCTTA director Navdeep Dhaliwal of the Advance Truck Training Centre in Mississauga said the group was in favor of the same lesson plan being taught across schools, as is done in B.C.
Recently, association members held a meeting with Prabmeet Singh Sarkaria, the province’s minister of transportation and MTO staff. The meeting addressed the upcoming changes cited by the MTO, according to an OCTTA news release.
They expressed their concerns and offered suggestions, including asking MTO authorities to issue a new bulletin to invite OCTTA, all other stakeholders, and industry experts to discuss a unified program and one lesson plan for Ontario schools.
The release added that road and traffic conditions cause schools to struggle with adhering to minute-by-minute lessons outlined by the MTO.
Flexibility sought for customized training
“In response, the Minister of Transport has assured OCTTA members that the situation will be reviewed and the MELT program may be transitioned from MCU to MTO for further adjustments.
“This move suggests that the MTO will have a more direct role in addressing the logistical challenges of the training process, possibly streamlining or adjusting the curriculum to account for the real world obstacles training centers face due to traffic and road conditions,” the release states.
The association’s officials said some students need customized training, for example, one could need more time on the road while another needed less time to learning backing. Fixed lessons plans don’t provide the flexibility required for customized training.
They also pointed out that sometimes students finish training ahead of their road test appointments at DriveTest centers. There are no minute-by-minute lesson plans for that, they added, saying that sometimes they provide training for free so that students can refresh their knowledge before the test.
They also said there is no lesson plan for drivers who want to remove the automatic restriction from their licence and learn to drive a truck with a manual transmission. “What curriculum do I follow?” Dhaliwal asked.
He also called for additional enforcement and the hiring of more inspectors, so that schools could be inspected regularly.
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