submission(foranenquiryinto(...

© 2011 Rabarl Pty Ltd of 18

SUBMISSION FOR AN ENQUIRY INTO

AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING IN

VICTORIA

Ram Gopal

Head of School

Founder, Australian College of Agriculture and Horticulture (ACAH);

Formerly known as Horticultural Skills Australia (HSA)

RTO Code: 21316; CRICOS Code 02494A

9 Bridge Street, Werribee 3030

Brian Gopal

General Manager

Australian College of Agriculture & Horticulture;

Horticultural Skills Australia and Rabarl Farms Werribee South

1 September 2011

Review of Ag Education in Victoria.pdf 31/08/11 9:14 AM

Review of Ag Education in Victoria.pdf 1 31/08/11 9:14 AM


Table of Contents

Executive Summary ....................................................................................................................... 3

An evaluation of the current extent of agricultural-‐related courses delivered in Victoria: ............................................................................................................................................. 3

An evaluation of the effectiveness of current agricultural programs: ......................... 4

Whether the current workforce training needs of agriculture are being met: ......... 6

An overview of well-‐regarded agricultural education in other Australian states and territories or other countries: ........................................................................................... 7

Current practices of Australian College of Agriculture & Horticulture (ACAH): .... 11 Key benefits and issues surrounding agricultural education and training courses: ............................. 14

Identified gaps in existing educational opportunities: ........................................................................ 14

The availability and effectiveness of pathways that allow transferability of skills acquired through

informal industry training with competencies provided in formal education and training: ................ 14

The role and effectiveness of the agricultural sector’s current involvement and its future capacity in

developing agricultural education and training: .................................................................................. 15

The capacity of current and future on-‐the-‐ job training and other alternative training programs to

enhance the skill levels of new and existing workers in the agricultural sector: ................................. 15

The quality and availability of existing teaching staff in the VET sector and higher education

institutions and the potential impact of the ageing workforce in the agriculture sector on the

availability of qualified trainers and teachers in the future: ............................................................... 16

Curriculum development to respond to the future needs of the agricultural sector: ......................... 16

How to increase the participation of existing agricultural sector workers in education and training

courses: ................................................................................................................................................ 17

How to improve public perceptions around pursuing a career in agriculture and potentially increase

the enrolment of young people in agriculture education and training courses: ................................. 18




Executive Summary

Addressing the Terms of Reference as follows:

• an evaluation of the current and extent of agricultural related courses in Victoria;

• an evaluation of the effectiveness of the current agricultural programs;

• whether he workforce training needs of agriculture are being met;

• an overview of well-‐regarded agricultural education in other Australian states

and territories or other countries;

An evaluation of the current extent of agricultural-‐related courses delivered in

Victoria:

The delivery of agricultural-‐ related courses in Victoria range from VET sector

qualifications through to higher education qualifications.

The VET sector qualifications currently delivered in Victoria are:

• Certificate II in Horticulture

• Certificate III in Horticulture

• Certificate IV in Horticulture

• Diploma of Horticulture

• Advanced Diploma of Horticulture

• Graduate Certificate in Applied Horticultural Production. This course has been

delivered by a private RTO since 2007.

However, for some reasons there are not many institutions delivering agricultural

qualifications in Victoria. Partly because of the lists, the focus has largely been in

horticulture not agriculture.

The higher education qualifications in Victoria are delivered at the following

institutions:

• University of Melbourne: Agriculture and Urban horticulture with environmental

science focus.

• Latrobe university: Agriculture with focus on agricultural economics




• University of Ballarat: operating in both VET as well as higher education sectors.

• Monash university: has been offering courses in Agribusiness

• Marcus Oldham College: deliver degree in Agriculture

Victoria University, Swinburne and Deakin do not deliver Degree programs in

Agriculture.

Real pathways from VET qualifications to higher education studies and vice versa is

non-‐existent. For this reason there is no clear articulation arrangements enabling

students to study in both sectors.

Viable articulation pathways between the two sectors should be as follows:

The establishment of clear articulation pathways as above will encourage enhancement

of agricultural education in Victoria.

An evaluation of the effectiveness of current agricultural programs:

It is abundantly clear that the current agricultural programs have not been effective and

if allowed to continue on its present path it will not meet the requirements of our

industry sectors.

A large number of training providers have been delivering qualifications in horticulture

most of them in wholesale nursery and landscape streams partly because of the fact that

these courses once appeared on the Migration Occupations in Demand List (MODL).

AQF DIPLOMA AQF

ADVANCED DIPLOMA

BACHELOR OF AGRICULTURE

VOCATIONAL GRADUATE CERTIFICATE

VOCATIONAL GRADUATE DIPLOMA

MASTER OF AGRICULTURE




We believe that with the separation of education from migration there is no point in

having any list whatsoever not even the Skills Occupation List (SOL).

However, if required the state of Victoria should have its own priorities in addressing

any skills shortage through migration.

We believe the focus of education should be directed at agriculture rather than keeping

to horticulture. Sustainable food production is the key issue facing the world today,

therefore education and training to production horticulture sectors should be given the

priority it deserves.

A huge gap in agricultural education has been created with the closure of six University

of Melbourne campuses formerly VCAH campuses in 1998.

This gap has not been filled therefore shortages are seen across all industry sectors.

Numerous job vacancies in ‘Agbizcareers’ remain unfilled simply because training

providers do not deliver qualifications for these sectors. Appropriate qualifications for

this sector would be at AQF 8 level: Vocational Graduate Certificate or Vocational

Graduate Diploma levels.

Our findings show that there is an extreme shortage for these qualifications in

Australia.

ACAH, (formerly Horticultural Skills Australia) is the only training provider delivering

this qualification in Australia. Our consultancy with industry clients both locally and

overseas has shown a great demand for these qualifications, as many students desire to

achieve the highest level of qualifications in our strong vocational sector.

Having more training providers deliver these qualifications can enhance agricultural

education programs. This should be encouraged across both public and private

education providers delivering high quality agricultural education and training for our

industry.




Whether the current workforce training needs of agriculture are being met:

Findings through our consultancy reveal that the current workforce needs of agriculture

sectors are not being adequately met. There is chronic skills shortage in most sectors of

the agriculture and horticulture industry throughout Victoria and in other states of

Australia as well.

With the recent change of focus brought about due to carbon farming initiatives, climate

change adaptations, quality assurance monitoring, safe chemical applications, post-‐

harvest handling, biosecurity, distribution supply chain and occupational health and

safety it is imperative that our qualifications fully address these issues only then the

training needs of our workforce will be adequately met.

According to 2011 Agrifood Environmental Scan the following occupations and

qualifications are listed as occupations in demand:

• Primary products inspectors, farmers and farm managers, agricultural

consultant, agricultural scientist and agricultural technicians

• Others include: general gardener, arborist, landscape gardener, greenkeeper and

nurserypersons.

However, through our consultations we found that agricultural technicians, primary

product inspectors / quarantine officers and agricultural consultants are in huge demand

in all key sectors of agriculture industry. This demand cannot be met locally therefore

efforts should be directed to attracting international students to study in programs

related to these occupations.

Through our consultation we also discovered that no one knew who will be our future

growers and where they will come from? The local interest in studying agriculture is

non-‐existent partly due to the fact that our careers teachers in schools have negative

ideas of agriculture and therefore do not encourage their students to study in

agriculture related fields. Instead they have promoted IT, accounting, nursing,

automotive and hospitality.




The parents have also not encouraged their children to study in the field of agriculture.

Participation of schools in agricultural shows has disappeared as our children have lost

all interest in agriculture and have no interest in experiencing life on the land.

Everyone knows that our farmers are old and will not be able to continue for much

longer – they will have to be replaced with our younger generation (next gen) farmers

who no one knows where they will come from?

These are key issues that tend to affect workforce development for our industry. For

long people in the government hierarchy have known about this problem and done

nothing about it.

Changes around us demand a solution through education of our people particularly the

younger generation to replace our ageing farmers who have served their time well.

Our experience in teaching people from recently arrived refugee groups has shown that

they are not interested in taking career on the land. But history of our industry has

shown that people participating in our industry have changed over time which initially

started with diggers then came the Greeks and Italians, thereafter Vietnamese and who

will be the next group of farmers as our younger generation are showing little interest.

The legitimate question to ask now is – would it be achieved through skilled migration?

If yes, then what are we doing about it to ensure that people coming into Victoria under

our migration programs stay on the land.

An overview of well-‐regarded agricultural education in other Australian states

and territories or other countries:

Currently, Queensland has a reasonably well-‐regarded Agricultural Education program

in Australia, despite the closure of its highly regarded Queensland Agricultural College

at Gatton.




The training providers delivering Agricultural education in Queensland are as follows:

INSTITUTION COURSES LOCAL COURSES CRICOS

AACC

Certificate III in Agriculture

Certificate IV in Agriculture

Diploma of Agriculture

Brisbane North Institute

of Tafe (BNIT)

Certificate III in Horticulture

Diploma of Horticulture

Horticultural Training

Pty Ltd

Certificate III in

Horticulture

Certificate IV in

Horticulture


N/A

Metropolitan South

Institute of Tafe (MSIT)


Certificate IV in Horticulture


Barrier Reef Institute of

Tafe (BRIT)



Sunshine Coast Institute

of Tafe (SCIT)

Certificate II in Horticulture


Tropical North

Queensland Institute of

Tafe (TNQIT)




Brisbane College of

Horticulture Not offered

Certificate III in

Horticulture

Certificate IV in

Horticulture


Australian College of

Agriculture &

Horticulture (ACAH)

Diploma of Production Horticulture

Graduate Certificate in Applied Horticultural Production

Information sourced from training.gov.au – (18-‐August 2011)




However, delivery of education to international clients has been seriously compromised

in almost every state throughout Australia. Our findings show that 2 day diploma

qualifications are issued by some training providers without delivery of any training

whatsoever. Records are skilfully maintained to satisfy the AQTF audit requirements.

This type of activity brings disrepute to our qualifications and destroys the image of our

industry.

As for other the countries, model adopted in Netherlands is very well regarded and is

worth replicating in Victoria. They have a Practical Training Centre (PTC) model in

place to ensure that their graduates on completion of training have good hands on

practical and application skills. Their training is considered world class as they include

innovative practices and technologies such as operations and management of climate

control glasshouses for production of hydroponic crops.

We believe that the quality of our qualifications issued by all training providers should

be compulsorily rigorously moderated through external moderation using technical

quiz and technical interviews with auditing of their graduates.

Our extensive consulting experience with industry stakeholders / employers has

revealed that a large number of qualifications issued by training providers for our

industry sectors are not worth the piece of paper on which they are written.

Paper trail auditing will no doubt achieve a limited expectation – the real test is in the

employment outcomes for our graduates. Presently the industry does not have a

regulation in place to evaluate the true quality of graduates to assess if they are indeed

employable.

If nothing is done about this issue then training providers will go on producing

graduates who are unemployable in our industry sectors. Issuing diploma qualifications

to each and every member of the family under Skills Victoria funding is not a solution

and will achieve nothing.




Finally, because of the skills shortages there is a growing demand for high-‐quality

employable graduates within our industry.

It’s not a good sight to see large numbers of skilled migrants who arrived to settle in

Victoria under Victorian state government sponsorships due to the fact that the

occupations Agricultural consultant / Agricultural scientist happens to be on the

Victorian eligibility sponsorship list, who intern are later deemed unemployable by

employers.

I have personally interviewed several people who arrived in Victoria under this scheme

on the basis of their overseas qualifications and found them to be completely

unemployable. They are not fit for our industry and need further training at post

diploma level. However, they choose not to upgrade their skills, knowledge and

experience therefore unable to meet the changing demands of our industry sectors, and

thus being a burden on the taxpayers.

Because of this they get very frustrated and end up working in factories, news agencies

and security industries cursing what the government policy has done to bring them into

Victoria.

We believe that occupation specific employment contract should be the mandatory

requirement for overseas skilled migrants to settle in Victoria through this pathway.

This basically means that new skilled migrants under this scheme must work in

occupations that are directly related to their sponsored nominated occupations.

For example, people migrating as Agricultural Scientist must work as Agricultural

Scientist and people migrating as Agricultural Consultant / Agricultural Adviser must

only work in these roles / positions.

We know that this will only be possible if they have the necessary knowledge, skills,

experience and attributes required by our industry sectors. An alternative to this would

be to build these skills by undertaking additional training in Australia, helping them




obtain the necessary certifications and licensing to enable them get a real job directly

related to their nominated occupations. However, our experience shows that these

people are generally not interested in the upgrading of their skills through additional

training.

We are very disappointed to hear of stories that the Victorian Government has

miserably failed in addressing these issues appropriately.

Because of this inaction, we know that the dreams of many skilled migrants who arrived

to settle in Victoria under the Victorian government’s sponsorship scheme have been

shattered.

This will later have a significant problem to the once known ‘Garden State’.

Current practices of Australian College of Agriculture & Horticulture (ACAH):

ACAH is a specialist-‐training provider delivering high quality consultancy and training

services to the Australian horticulture industry sectors. It delivers high quality training

in tropical, sub-‐tropical and temperate agriculture and horticulture industry sectors.

Through involvement in consultancy work ACAH has been able to deliver qualifications

in relevance to current and emerging industry practices.

The strength of our business is due to the fact that we have been involved in

agribusiness, education and training and consulting work.

In consultation with key growers in our industry we came to understand the great need

for an agricultural training facility to be established in a leading horticultural district

Werribee South.

To meet this demand we invested in the purchase of a 17-‐acre farm at 25 Whites Road,

Werribee South, hoping to build an education centre for delivery of consulting and

training services to industry clients at a commercial level (job ready).




At the point of purchase of this property the education centre was permitted use within

the green wedge zone. However, to our great disappointment this permitted use was

removed by the then state planning minister, therefore to meet our commitment for

training delivery in Werribee we had no other choice than to establish a training facility

at 9 Bridge Street, Werribee.

Because of this setback we applied for a permit to establish a demonstration farm,

which has been under development, when ready will comprise of 1000sqm glasshouse

and plant health diagnostic centre, for delivery of our consultancy service to industry

clients.

If the permit application for education centre were granted then today we would have a

fully operational education facility located in the heart of one of the last metropolitan

leading vegetable growing district in Victoria.

Establishment of this facility would enhance the delivery of agricultural education in

Victoria; therefore in the interest of education for our industry we request the state

government of Victoria to support this project.

Information relating to:

Courses offered by Australian College of Agriculture & Horticulture:

Courses offered Students Completed

Certificate II in Horticulture (Retail Nursery) 0

Certificate II in Production Horticulture 61

Certificate II in Horticulture (Wholesale Nursery) 0

Certificate II in Horticulture (Parks and Gardens) 0

Certificate II in Horticulture (Landscape) 0


(Retail Nursery) 0




Certificate III in Production Horticulture 348


(Wholesale Nursery) 340


(Parks and Gardens) 6

Certificate III in Horticulture (Landscape) 0


(Wholesale Nursery) 483


(Retail Nursery) 0



Certificate IV in Horticulture (Turf) 0

Certificate IV in Horticulture (Landscape) 96

Certificate IV in Production Horticulture 111


(Retail Nursery) 0

Diploma of Production Horticulture 256

Diploma of Horticulture (Wholesale Nursery) 755



Diploma of Horticulture (Landscape) 32

Graduate Certificate in Applied Horticultural

Production 66

Data sourced from mywise.net/acah (18-‐August 2011)

Data includes National & International student since January 2007




Key benefits and issues surrounding agricultural education and training courses:

The key benefits surrounding agricultural education and training will be in developing

our future growers for production of high quality food and fibre products for both

domestic and export markets.

Training of young people will help replace our ageing growers and providing support to

our economy.

We believe in making agriculture a priority occupation by encouraging majority of

young people to undertake training in agriculture and choosing life on the land.

The reason for decline in interest amongst young people in undertaking agricultural

education is that because our schools have not been active in encouraging their students

to study in the agricultural education tertiary sector.

This has been the main reason for current skills shortage across our industry sectors.

Identified gaps in existing educational opportunities:

The gaps created due to the closure of University of Melbourne, formerly VCAH

campuses has caused significant limitations in educational opportunities for all

potential students desiring to study in the field of agriculture.

The availability and effectiveness of pathways that allow transferability of skills

acquired through informal industry training with competencies provided in

formal education and training:

Granting qualifications through skills recognition on the basis of prior learning and

work experience has not met our expectations.

A large number of learners still believe that learning takes place within the boundaries

of bricks and mortars.




Furthermore, the employers in our industry sectors have shown little commitment to

training and majority of them still believe that training delivery is the role of training

providers not the industry. With the industry / training provider / community

partnerships it is expected that this problem would be overcome.

The University / Private RTO / Tafe articulation pathways has not progressed well as

there is still a fair bit of us and them attitude.

The role and effectiveness of the agricultural sector’s current involvement and its

future capacity in developing agricultural education and training:

Things look good at industry skills council (ISC) level, which normally finishes with

conferences, seminars and workshops, but have not worked well at actual industry

enterprise levels.

In the development of future capacity for agricultural education and training

stakeholders must actively work with training providers at enterprise levels.

The capacity of current and future on-‐the-‐ job training and other alternative

training programs to enhance the skill levels of new and existing workers in the

agricultural sector:

The delivery of current on-‐ the-‐ job training has had good success and must be

maintained, however the off-‐the-‐job component should have a flexible delivery mode

such as accessibility to on-‐line delivery, video conferencing with face-‐to-‐face

assessments. Other methods of delivery can be by day / block release with options for

night classes.

Both existing and new workers should be able to access this program to build their skill

levels.




The quality and availability of existing teaching staff in the VET sector and higher

education institutions and the potential impact of the ageing workforce in the

agriculture sector on the availability of qualified trainers and teachers in the

future:

This is a serious problem facing our industry affecting both VET and higher education

sectors largely due to ageing workforce and unavailability of qualified trainers.

New trainers with TAE qualifications need building and mentoring support before they

can deliver training on their own unsupervised.

A clever way would be to convert industry people into becoming trainers or using

industry experts as mentors for new trainers.

Curriculum development to respond to the future needs of the agricultural sector:

Training package qualifications are generally not content specific and therefore have

some limitations partly because some industry sectors have not been adequately

consulted during its development process.

Because of this shortfall training providers should be encouraged to develop their own

industry sector specific training packages for delivery.

Our consultancy with industry reveals that there is a strong demand for training

package qualifications to be developed at vocational graduate certificate and graduate

diploma levels. As a direct result of this industry demand ACAH has had to develop its

own Graduate Certificate in Applied Horticultural Production.

In 2007 our application for approval of a Non Award course: Introduction to

Horticulture had failed to get approval for registration from the Victorian Registration

and Qualifications Authority (VRQA).




We were very disappointed in seeing that this qualification had been knocked on the

head by contracting the services of former employees of VRQA who were hired back as

consultants simply to disapprove this qualification.

If approval was granted then this would have been the only qualification in Australia.

This makes us wonder the degree and level of support provided to agricultural

education and training in Victoria.

Because of the specialised nature of our industry we believe that the future needs of our

key industry sectors will greatly depend on content specific qualifications addressing

application of science to practice.

How to increase the participation of existing agricultural sector workers in

education and training courses:

Increasing the participation of existing agricultural sector workers in education and

training courses has been an uphill battle as operators across our industry generally

believe that what they have learnt from their forefathers is sufficient for their lifetime.

Through this type of thinking they have missed an important point that today’s market

demands are different, where new problems presented require new solutions.

These solution can only be achieved through high quality education and training.

Alternatively, a more expensive way of achieving the same result would be by

employment of agronomists and consultants.

Employment of agronomists and consultants can cost growers up to $250 / hour – a

cheaper way would be through participation in education and training.




How to improve public perceptions around pursuing a career in agriculture and

potentially increase the enrolment of young people in agriculture education and

training courses:

The public perception around pursuing a career in agriculture can only be improved by

encouraging people to eat healthy by growing their own food and demanding food that

are produced using sustainable practices.

In achieving this outcome the schools should be actively involved in sustainable food

production and this should be a compulsory part of their student’s study requirement.

A professional development activity for all careers teachers should include compulsory

participation in agricultural shows and attending workshops and seminars that

specifically relate to agriculture.

These activities would help improve public perceptions around pursuing a career in

agriculture and potentially increase the enrolment of young people in agricultural

education and training courses.

Yours sincerely,

Ram Gopal

Head of School

Founder, Australian College of Agriculture & Horticulture (ACAH)

25 Whites Road, Werribee South, Victoria 3030

Mailing Address:

P.O Box 1105

Werribee Plaza, Werribee 3030



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