Ag education 'in trouble': teachers association

QATA regional coordinator Brisbane north and south, Volker Jahnke, an organiser of the National Association of Agricultural Educators conference in Toowoomba last week, said schools continued to struggle to attract teachers and students.

"Agriculture education is in trouble and we have to deal with it," Mr Jahnke said.

"I recently asked a class, 'how many of you are going to go to agriculture education further?' Only one out of 22 put up their hand."

Mr Jahnke said that student wanted to be an agronomist but didn't have the ATAR score to get into university.

"Every school that teaches ag would have one or two of these people who just don't go into ag, but you could see that would be an absolutely beautiful person for the industry or for teaching," he said.

"She would be a perfect example of giving a scholarship and saying, 'here's the scholarship, we will mentor you through your first, second, third and fourth year of uni. Here's a series of opportunities within the industry'. Imagine doing 20 of those a year."

The coordinator said ag could learn from other sectors.

"If you had a 16 year old who's great at football, I'll guarantee someone has knocked on that person's door and said 'here is a tutor' or whatever they give to make that 16 year old ready for the draft," he said.

"Subjects like manual arts and home economics - industry has dealt with that through their school based traineeships.

"We don't have that and we need to start addressing it, because a lot of kids love it in year nine and 10, but most of them wouldn't go into ag because we don't have a solid program."

Mr Jahnke said the other issue was teachers, as many were retiring and not being replaced.

"The schools are now struggling to deliver the curriculum and the issue there is the creation of new trained ag teachers," he said.

"We have PE teachers, English teachers and science teachers say, 'I can deliver this', but I think you would realise that there's a certain passion that you need within that teacher to make it work.

"They do a great job considering their inexperience, but if you haven't got the experience in chemistry, mathematics and literacy related to agriculture, you would struggle."

According to Mr Jahnke, bridging courses and professional development could be part of the solution, with University of Southern Queensland revealing some "really concrete strategies" for the sector while hosting the NAAE conference.

In 2020, UniSQ unveiled a new school dedicated to the study of agriculture and environmental science, from undergraduate to higher degree research training.

Teachers may have to get better at lobbying too, Mr Jahnke said.

"There are lobby groups and industry people that love to go and talk to the ministers. I think governments probably listen really well to these groups, but do they really listen to the teacher at the bottom of the rung?" he said.

"We're not skilled at that and perhaps we should have some training in that."

QATA president Will Goss said while ag education was suffering, the problem was widespread across all agricultural industries and education.

"Every industry, whether it be meat and livestock or grains is facing the same issue of getting people into the workforce, from all down the supply chain.

"We can say we want more ag teachers, but in the end, every other school wants English and maths and science teachers as well. It's not only us crying out, it's everyone, unfortunately."

Mr Jahnke said on a positive note, the NAAE conference offered the opportunity to raise issues with the right people.

"This conference is the very first one that has got all the stakeholders together in one room and said, 'it needs a full review'," he said.

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