Ontario driving school group opposes detailed MELT lesson plans for practical training
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.
Have your say
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The gov should work Humber college and the 3 gov run insurance companies to set a plan no private school should have to spend money on a plan a complete overhaul of the testing company would be a good first step in my opinion
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Agreed
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Funny, never heard of this association? Smells a lot like the parking lot schools run by shady operators. MELT needs to have instruction separately from standing behind a Tim Hortons somewhere.
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It mean we on right track. We can smell something is burning.
Too many Ontario and Canadian Truck Driver Training companies, have not been very good for decades.
This organization is fighting oversight and accountability. This is exactly why the industry needs detailed lesson plans.
We are one of few that has said MELT is a weak training program since it’s concept.
All decent trucking companies will not hire a driver if all they have for training is MELT, and most insurance companies won’t insure them.
I don’t know how many owner and senior managers of fleets have told us they can’t hire a driver who only has MELT training and no other experience.
We should less worried about lesson plans and more concerned about developing a true National Training Program for new drivers.
If fleets are forced to deliver lengthy, detailed Mentoring Programs to retrain a MELT drivers, they may as well open their own inhouse driving school.
Our safety record in trucking is about as bad as it has ever been, thanks to MELT and those who thought it was a good idea.
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10,000% correct. The MELT program, as it stands, is ineffective as a standalone tool for training drivers, and is fraught with vulnerabilities that invite misuse or unethical practices.
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It was never meant to be a stand alone tool for training drivers. Mandatory Entry Level Training. Entry is the key word. The trucking companies still have to provide additional training to their employees for their specific needs. The company I work for provides 6 weeks of on the job training to new drivers before they can go off on their own and we still give them the easiest jobs until they get more experience.
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Interesting that the very people pushing back on these necessary recommendations are the reasons they’re needed.
Every accredited teaching institution has lesson plans. The only reason not to want to implement them? You don’t have an organized approach to teaching skills and therefore there is NO standard to be enforced.
I’m interested to know, who isn’t pushing back in these requirements. Publish their names so we can support their companies!
The main concern for everyone involved should be, can the student read, speak and understand English! As a snow plow driver on the 401, I see accidents daily and sometimes we can’t understand what is being said because those involved can not speak English@
From everything I have been able to read, nowhere does it say that a “minute-by-minute” lesson plan is required. This group, the OCTTA, has latched onto a perceived problem that does not exist.
Scenarios mentioned by the OCTTA group such as removing automatic transmission restrictions, or needing more time on the road, are outside the scope of the MELT program, and have more to do with getting the student to pass written and practical tests than they do with the MELT lesson program.
Additionally, the OCTTA recounted a disturbing scenario “They also pointed out that sometimes students finish training ahead of their road test appointments at DriveTest centers.”, which begs the question if the MELT program is being followed, how does a student driver finish ahead of time? And furthermore, what does that have to do with the MELT program itself? There is no requirement in the MELT program to actually acquire your license.
Here’s what I think really has happened … The OCTTA are a group of tradespersons with above average ability to teach their trade and skills to others. They are not however, administrators or managers. They [the OCTTA] have decided that the task of building and submitting lesson plans is more than they are capable of undertaking, and want the government to do it for them.
It would stand to reason that if schools outside of the OCTTA group are capable of building and implementing lesson plans, as noted in the January 6, 2025 article “Ontario pushes reset button on MELT for new truck drivers” by Leo Barros, the OCTTA group should be able to do that as well.
To be fair, not everyone is capable of being an administrator, or manager, and there’s nothing wrong that. The OCTTA group should stick to what they know, and hire administrators or managers, as needed. Granted that will raise the cost of deploying the MELT program, but there is a price to be paid for safe roadways, and if increased training costs are part of that, then so be it.
The government has laid out the parameters within which the MELT program is to be applied and administered. If the training school portion of the industry wants to be part of the solution, then they are going to have to step up their game, and not just sit around waiting for a government to grant them an extension, or a pass. We’re long past the days of everyone getting a trophy just for participating.
Maybe, just maybe, being a MELT program instructor, or administrator, or manager, should require the acquisition of a teaching certificate?
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We need to go back to the DZ first for a couple years at least for experience before you go close to a tractor trailer driver. This is the most bizarre, unethical and dangerous way to become a transport driver. Even when they implemented the A program in the late 70’s in Ontario, carriers would not even look at you unless you had 3-5 years experience in a straight truck.
Whoever came up with the concept that you could become a tractor trailer driver in 8 weeks or less is INSANE. And even further more, to be tested by someone at a test center that never drove a truck in their career is complete lunacy. I have over 50 years of commercial driving experience so I can say this.
All I’m hearing from these driving schools are reasons why they can’t comply with a defined curriculum. These are excuses they are using to defend their inadequate driver education schools and programs. A properly prepared training plan will incorporate sufficient time for students to learn all aspects of the driving profession. If their students cannot complete an assigned task within the allotted time frame, they should not proceed to the next level of training and tasks. As with all other trades and professions it is the student’s responsibility to learn, understand, and demonstrate their competency at completing the task. If they require additional training, it comes at additional cost, no different than any other trade student. anyone who states that they cannot train within a defined curriculum is either an incompetent trainer, a poor communicator, or cannot manage their time.
We should never forget that “some people do not have the skills to safely operate an articulated commercial vehicle”. No one should be trained to pass the road test just because they paid the training fees.
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Very well put. In fact, extremely well put.
If this comment section had emoji’s, you’d definitely get a double thumbs up from me.
MELT was designed to prepare a student to challenge the MTO/DriveTest exam. PERIOD. MELT was a huge step in attempting to increase the basic knowledge of a prospective commercial driver prior to challenging the exam. It is not the responsibility of the program developers if MELT/CTDTS, as approved by MCU, is not effectively nor fully delivered, or if the approved curriculum is not followed.
Furthermore, a great many instructors within the MELT community are not qualified/competent in Adult Education, nor do they have the Subject Matter expertise/road experience [years of actual driving time in environments/situations/kms/hours] to adequately prepare the student for the vocation and it’s inherent dangers/risks/results.
Taking it to the next stage, the number of students who obtain a Class A licence by ‘passing’ a road test that is improperly administered is an issue yet to be resolved.
In addition, the transportation companies who expect a Class A recruit to be professionally-ready for the above-listed environments/situations/etc, yet have no effective in-house training/mentoring program post-MELT are not taking their responsibilities seriously, risking the lives of all road users and their fresh recruit. It goes without saying that insurance companies also have a role in these responsibilities. Companies who hire anybody with a Class A licence simply because they need bodies behind the wheel is a symptom of the low wages and decades of driver abuse–a subject for another day….
A series of successive Transportation Ministers have been unresponsive to the real needs of both commercial and private road users. Blaming MELT/CTDTS is the response of those who are uninformed and unwilling to to take the difficult road of tough measures and intelligent actions.
Finally clear thoughts published any industry leader is most welcome to come and give us a minute by minute lesson plan demo we can arrange all the sources. MELT interduce in July 2017 no update since than why? Because someone has to print a new books.Why is the lesson plan? Is this work for road safety? No not at all. This only can make more rich to the program developer. Truck driving schools provide training and final road test taken mto approved authorities known as serco(divetest center) than how come school responsible for that. This is very dirty game to diverted from reality. Who is beneficiary to all this. May be plan to monopoly on the training schools like a superschooling.