Trades students in Alberta have their own scholarships, including RAP awards, Skills Canada prizes and industry money. If you're heading into an apprenticeship, or already earning hours through RAP, this is your map.
RAP in one section
The Registered Apprenticeship Program lets Alberta high school students work as paid apprentices while finishing their diploma. You earn a wage, you earn high school credits for your work hours, and those same hours count toward the first period of your apprenticeship after graduation. You leave Grade 12 with a diploma, work experience and apprenticeship hours.
Getting in goes through your school. Talk to your off-campus education coordinator or guidance counsellor, who connects you with an employer willing to take a registered apprentice. If your school runs trades-related CTS courses, that's the natural on-ramp.
The scholarships attached to RAP
Doing RAP makes you eligible for scholarships that only registered apprentices can apply for.
- High School Apprenticeship Scholarship, $1,000. For Grade 12 students registered as apprentices who plan to continue in their trade. This is the successor to the long-running RAP scholarship.
- High School Apprenticeship Scholarship: Bright Futures, $2,000. The bigger sibling, aimed at RAP students continuing their apprenticeship after graduation.
- Skills Canada Alberta awards. Competing at Skills Canada regionals or provincials opens its own scholarship tier, up to the $20,000 Terry Cooke Legacy Scholarship, and a provincial win carries the WorldSkills Provincial Champion Scholarship with it. If your shop teacher has ever suggested entering, that's the reason.
- Corporate trades awards. Energy and construction companies fund trades-specific scholarships (TC Energy's STEM & Trades awards and the Canadian Natural Resources Scholarship are two examples) because they hire from the trades.
The current crop, with live deadlines, is on the Trades scholarships page.
One caution about the Rutherford
The Alexander Rutherford Scholarship requires full-time enrolment in a post-secondary program at least one semester long. A pre-employment trades certificate or diploma at a college qualifies, but the short technical-training blocks inside a standard apprenticeship usually don't. If you're apprenticing, check your program against Alberta Student Aid's rules before counting on that money. And if you're doing a college trades program first, apply, because your Grade 12 marks are worth up to $2,500 either way.
RAP on other applications
A RAP placement is evidence that you show up and work. Put it on general and local award applications the way you would a sports captaincy or a student council seat.
Build my combo flags every award that needs RAP or CTS enrollment, so you can see which ones are yours.