TORONTO, Ont. — The “Essential Driving Skills; Tractor-Trailer Driver” curriculum package, that includes a 406-page driver textbook and 820-page instructor manual, is now complete and has approved by the Ministry of Transportation (MTO), the Ontario Trucking Association (OTA) revealed today.
According to the OTA, the materials will be available shortly as an off-the-shelf program to OTA member fleets wishing to upgrade their Driver Certification Program (DCP) to meet the new standards for Mandatory Entry Level Training (MELT) in Ontario kicking in July 1.
Known in industry terms as “DCP in a Box”, the robust program is designed for upgrading drivers to the Class A licence, and will be attractive to many DCP participant companies. OTA will begin offering the curriculum package to training providers in the next couple of months, it said.
The package also consists of:
- 36 lesson plan modules covering classroom, yard and driving
- 877 PowerPoint slide deck
- 8 hours of narrated content
- Instructor orientation workshop
“With the development of MELT we knew there would be changes to how drivers are trained in the province. OTA felt it was necessary to provide its membership with a plug-and-play option to comply with the new standards should they want to develop professional truck operators from within their own organizations,” said Stephen Laskowski, OTA president. “DCP in a box will do this for carriers in a very cost effective manner, as well as streamline many of the other internal processes that come along with MTO’s Driver Certification Program.”