The Southeast College is looking to introduce a new trades program sometime in the future, thanks to the provincial government.

Last week, the Saskatchewan government announced at the end of November funding worth $4.38 million dollars would be going to trade colleges across the province.

That money would be used to expand and create new skills training programs, in sectors such as healthcare, welding, and electricians.

A portion of that money will be going to Southeast College, which will help them create a new program.

Sheena Onrait, the college's manager of marketing and communications, says so far they're still looking at exactly what they want to do.

"Our intent with the funding is to put it towards a trade program, and likely a partnership with one of our first nation communities within Southeastern Saskatchewan," said Onrait, "So that's kind of our next step and what we're doing right now, we'll have more information as we solidify the program as well as a location."

The process of determining what program is chosen will include a number of factors, including how the Southeast and the entirety of Saskatchewan may shift over the next few years.

"When we're trying to identify what program to offer where probably the largest factor we consider is labor market demand," said Onrait, "So you try to anticipate 3 to 5 years out and what's gonna happen within the community and what's going to happen within the southeast region, and sometimes it's as broad as what's going to happen within Saskatchewan."

Onrait says that the program will likely be available sometime in 2022, which she attributes to how easily a regional college can set up programs.

"Hopefully it'll be something that we are able to do fairly shortly," said Onrait, "That's the beauty of the regional colleges, we have the ability to be able to do programs and host programs and start them up in a very quick manner because we have that flexibility."