Most teachers strive to make a difference and if they’re lucky will leave behind a legacy they can be proud of. St Paul’s Collegiate School deputy headmaster Peter Hampton is developing a new agribusiness curriculum for secondary schools to address the shortage of tertiary graduates entering the primary sector and hopefully elevate agriculture to its rightful place in the New Zealand education sector. He talked to Sheryl Brown.
MORE students are studying French than agriculture in New Zealand secondary schools and the numbers for the latter are still dropping.
Fewer than 500 students studied level 3 agricultural and horticultural science last year and fewer than that were going on to study agribusiness or agricultural science degrees at tertiary level.
The primary industry sector has a serious shortage of educated people graduating with tertiary education in agribusiness or agricultural science roles. The sector needed 1200 graduates every year but was producing only 250.
The Government estimated the sector would employ another 50,000 people by 2025, half of them requiring tertiary or level 4 qualifications.
There should have been serious alarm bells ringing around the country years ago, St Paul’s Collegiate School deputy headmaster Peter Hampton says.
There was a gap for secondary schools to deliver high academic agriculture-focused courses.
Part of the problem was an ingrained perception agriculture was a subject for less academic students, Hampton says.
Tertiary-capable students were not encouraged to pursue a career in the primary industries but in reality the sector needed the country’s brightest students to be filling a growing number of highly-skilled roles.
“We’re having to employ people from overseas. It seems ridiculous. This is the heartbeat of our economy and we’re not engaging enough young people.”
The lack of focus on primary industries in the education system was a poor oversight. There had been disconnect between primary industries and the education sector for too long, he says.
“I think agribusiness hasn’t understood the education sector and vice versa.”
Teachers were busy people and addressing the declining numbers in the agriculture courses had been in the too-hard basket.
Hampton has spent most of his career teaching at secondary schools in Waikato.
His parents and siblings were all teachers but many in his extended family were involved with pastoral farming so he has always had a close insight into the industry.
When he started at St Paul’s four years ago, the agriculture and horticulture science course wasn’t even offered at the private school.
St Paul’s conducted a parent survey in 2012 that revealed 55% of the parents were involved in the agricultural industry, from onfarm to agribusiness and they wanted to see higher academic courses focused on agriculture.
Hampton helped to re-establish the agriculture and horticulture level 1 course, which focuses on what happens onfarm, last year.
When the school hosted a regional Young Farmers final there was talk about the need for an elevated academic agribusiness course that covered topics beyond the farmgate.
Hampton and St Paul’s headmaster Grant Lander had since worked with key industry partners to develop a draft agriculture science and business curriculum.
The agribusiness course included topics such as managing risks, agri-marketing, microbiology, food science, digital technology and agribusiness accounting among others.
St Paul’s trialled the pilot curriculum this year with 48 of its top academic students who also took the agriculture and horticultural science course.
“We deliberately targeted our top students with strong science and economics or accounting backgrounds, our most tertiary-capable students.”
The pilot proved a success. Of the 20 year-13 students, 16 chose to study an agriculture-focused degree at a tertiary level.
That was a huge jump from previous years when the school averaged only two students choosing agricultural degrees.
Next year 80 students would study the agribusiness curriculum and seven lead schools would join the pilot in 2016.
The schools were Southland Boys, Southland Girls, John McGlashan, Otago, Christchurch Boys, Feilding High, Lindisfarne, Hawke’s Bay, and Mt Albert, Auckland.
Each lead school was in a major province and would work with local business and their community to raise the profile of the primary industry sector, Hampton said.
The Centre of Excellence for Agriculture Science and Business curriculum is a two-year course for years 12 and 13 students.
The plan was to get approval for a national roll-out in 2017.
If the course was approved and adopted by 50 or 100 schools, the number of students going on to graduate with tertiary qualifications designed for the primary industry sector would multiply quickly.
The initiative had the potential to be a real game changer for the primary sector.
While there was still a lot of work ahead to get it across the line, the positive response from industry, businesses and the community had been overwhelming.
“This has been the most exciting development Grant and I have been involved with during our careers.
“We could have done our little bit for St Paul’s but I think we felt it was right to do it for NZ.”
The initiative was supported by principal partners DairyNZ and Beef + Lamb along with other business partners BNZ, LIC, Zoetis, AGMARDT, NZ National Fieldays Society, Greenlea Premier Meats, Waikato Milking Systems, Waitomo Petroleum and Campbell Tyson.
St Paul’s was funding its own Centre of Excellence building for Agricultural Science and Business to help further raise the profile of agricultural science and business opportunities.
The centre would feature the latest technology to provide opportunities for students to have online links including video conferencing to professionals and tertiary institutes and would be available to other schools in the region.
