In the 1980s, community colleges began to receive funds in order to establish their own apprenticeship training programs. Prior to this, these programs were centralized in technical institutes. As technical institutes lost their exclusive control over apprenticeship programs, they gained increased autonomy when Bill 98, the Technical Institutes Act, was approved in 1982, transferring their governance from the provincial government to their own board of governors. In the financial front, the 1980s are marked by the introduction of a Supplementary Enrolment Fund for Post-Secondary funding in 1982, which factored in enrolment increases to allocate provincial financial resources.
