Choosing a School
take care to choose wisely.
To become a commercial truck driver in Ontario, you must attend an approved MELT program: ‘Mandatory Entry Level Training’. ONLY schools that are Private Career Colleges (PCCs) are approved by the province to provide MELT training. This is the first thing you need to check! If a school is not registered, they are not approved to provide MELT training! Click the link below and enter the name of the school in the PRIVATE CAREER COLLEGE SEARCH. if it does not appear, it is not registered. You should then visit the school’s office AT THE ADDRESS LISTED IN THE SEARCH, not just the yard someone told you about.
Registered MELT schools
← Click and enter the name of the school to find
out if it is a Registered Private Career College
Which one to pick?
Once you determine that a school is registered and can legally provide MELT, you need to choose a good one. Why does it matter? Because when you apply for that high-paying dream job with the big trucking company, they will want to know who trained you! You do not want to have to show them the certificate from the school who is known to provide cheap, cut-rate training. It’s very hard to know but the first thing to remember is that ‘cheaper’ and ‘faster’ is NOT better!!
Spend the extra time to look into a school. Your future career may depend on it! Go into a school’s office and ask about their program, ask for details about the classroom training (which is mandatory) ask them to tell you about the materials they will use to teach you. Go and visit the yard. Take notice of how many students and how many instructors you see. If you see more than 4 students learning or practising inspection with 1 instructor, that is a red flag! ‘Around the truck’ training is no more than 4 students per 1 instructor and EVERYTHING else is 1 on 1. If you see students practising inspection around the truck without an instructor, this is a HUGE red flag! You are paying to be instructed, not self-learn, the MELT standard requires direct instruction!
Avoid a cut rate school, EMPLOYERS KNOW WHO THEY ARE. You may need to be willing to pay a little more for a high quality program, the money will come back to you when you are hired by a high quality company!