Waikato secondary school has instigated a pilot curriculum focused on agricultural science and business to promote primary industry careers.
Hamilton’s St Paul’s Collegiate School had joined industry partners to fund the pilot scheme and had 48 students enrol in the trial curriculum this year.
Another 85 students were signed up for next year with seven schools trialling the courses in 2016 before a planned national roll-out in 2017.
The draft curriculum offered agribusiness courses at NZQA levels 2 and 3, including plant science, soil science, managing risks in agribusiness, agri-marketing, food science, microbiology and agribusiness accounting.
The pilot was already proving successful with 15 students from this year’s trial going on to study agribusiness at a tertiary level next year, St Paul’s deputy headmaster Peter Hampton said.
In previous years, the school had averaged only two students choosing agribusiness degrees, despite 55% of the school’s parents being involved with agribusiness.
“There has been a tremendous response from our students. These are bright, academically-capable students.”
The idea started when St Paul’s hosted the Young Farmers’ regional final in 2013 and a gap in the curriculum was highlighted.
There had been a steady decline in students taking the available agricultural and horticultural science course across New Zealand, St Paul’s headmaster Grant Lander said.
There was no other structured programme to encourage students to take up careers in agricultural science and business in preparation for tertiary study.
Agriculture had always been perceived to be for teenagers who wouldn’t be attending university, he said.
There had to be a change in the hearts, minds and ambitions of teenagers so they were made more aware of the opportunities in the crucial primary industry sector.
The pilot curriculum focused beyond the farmgate, showcasing opportunities in plant, soil and food science and agribusiness. The aim was to show students with strong science or commerce backgrounds the opportunities to use those skills in the sector.
“I am confident that, once implemented, this curriculum initiative will have a major, positive influence on the human resource pool for the nation’s most important export sector,” Lander said.
St Paul’s would build a Centre of Excellence for Agricultural Science and Business to help further raise the profile of agricultural science and business opportunities in the primary industries among its students.
The centre would feature the latest technology to provide opportunities for students to have online links including video conferencing with professionals and tertiary institutes and would be available to other schools in the region.
The pilot would help achieve the Government’s challenge to attract another 50,000 people to the industry by 2025, half of which would require a tertiary or level 4 qualification, Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy said.
The agriculture industry employed an estimated 11.4% of NZ’s workforce and agriculture, horticulture, fishing and forestry were becoming more sophisticated industries with higher skill levels required.
“We’re going to need to continue to attract the youngest and brightest into the primary sector.
“They will be robotic engineers, environmental planners, food safety scientists,” Guy said.
Principal partners DairyNZ and Beef + Lamb with other business partners BNZ, LIC, Zoetis, AGMARDT, National Fieldays Society, Greenlea Premier Meats, Waikato Milking Systems, Waitomo Petroleum and Campbell Tyson had contributed $2 million to the joint venture with St Paul’s.
The schools set to trial the pilot in 2016 were Southland Boys, Southland Girls, John McGlashan (Otago), Christchurch Boys, Feilding High, Lindisfarne (Hawke’s Bay) and Mt Albert (Auckland).
