A primary industries and education guru has joined the team of experts building New Zealand’s first highly-academic agribusiness course for secondary school students.
Kerry Allen, Agribusiness Project Curriculum Director, joined St Paul’s Collegiate School at the end of 2014 bringing with her 20-plus years of primary industries experience.
Her goal? To help St Paul’s create an agribusiness programme designed to develop students’ knowledge of agricultural science and business beyond the farm gate and encourage tertiary study in this sector to address the skills shortage of New Zealand’s biggest export industry.
“The industry, Primary ITO and current secondary school Agricultural and Horticultural Science subject covers farm skills but we also need a programme that will cover the applied or academic needs of the industry,” Kerry said.
“The belief that students will simply come out of the pure sciences like biology and chemistry at the secondary school level into agricultural science at the tertiary level is not working. Very few young New Zealanders have any contact or awareness with rural New Zealand and what Agriculture or Horticulture is.”
“We need engage tertiary capable students at secondary school level who are the right talent with the right skills, vision, drive and passion to move into the tertiary agriculture.”
Kerry has witnessed the skills shortage first hand as the owner of two dairy farms and a part owner of AgFirst, an agricultural consulting company that provides competitive business solutions to the rural sector.
She has also been heavily involved in the education sector for the past 18 years, specialising in AgHort as a teacher, regulator of NCEA exams and a curriculum and assessment writer.
With a great understanding of where the shortfalls are in primary industries education at the secondary school level and her knowledge of the sector itself, Kerry will create an agribusiness curriculum that is relevant to the sector and engaging for academically-bright students.
She says collaboration with industry leaders, tertiary institutes and other secondary schools to create the Centre of Excellence for Agricultural Science and Business programme, will be the key to ensure it is engaging and relevant.
“I will be working in conjunction with the programme’s principal partners DairyNZ and Beef + Lamb; our 10 business partners and leading universities,” Kerry said.
Kerry is also working with seven ‘lead schools’ that have been selected to trial a pilot curriculum in 2016: “The feedback provided by these schools will help us create a curriculum relevant to both the rural sector and the New Zealand secondary education system.”
Delivery of the programme through the lead schools trial will mark the second stage of the programme. St Paul’s students have been taking part in a pilot since 2014.
Following the trials, Kerry will work with the Ministry of Education to have the curriculum and achievement standards approved as an NCEA subject.
