Farm and station MOST TEACH AGRICULTURE IN HIGH SCHOOLS

Press, 17 December 1976, Page 14

Farm and station MOST TEACH AGRICULTURE IN HIGH SCHOOLS

The most noticeable difference between New Zealand's agricultural education system and the agricultural education policies, of most overseas countries is the amount of emphasis placed on agricultural education at the high school level.

This was the conclusion reached by the New Zealand delegation attending the First World Agriculture Education Conference after listening to submissions from 27 contributing countries on the theme, “Systems of Agricultural Education.”

Whereas New Zealand concentrates on agricultural education once students have left high school, through the technical institutes, agricultural universities, farm cadet schemes, and farm training institutes, most developed countries begin this education at the high school level. In the Netherlands, for example, one third of the State budget for agricultural education is for education in the high schools.

Many countries, including the United States, Canada, Japan, West Germany, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, the Republic of China, Belgium, Korea, and the Netherlands, offer vocational agriculture in the curriculum of'selected agricultural schools. This does not mean that agriculture is taught to the exclusion of other subjects. Usually four core subjects, e.g. English, social studies, mathematics, and science, are compulsory subjects for all students, but their fifth subject can either be a general subject or a vocational subject. Other vocational subjects besides agriculture include surveying, business education, secretarial science, home making, industrial art, journalism, and nursing. The normal time allocation for vocational education is 20 to 25 per cent of the total study time.

Educationalists, both in education departments and

agricultural universities, give the following reasons for the teaching of vocational agriculture in high schools. First, the vital factor for success in any form of study is some form of motivation and the best form of motivation comes from an interest in the subject. In turn with imaginative teaching from both the agricultural and non-agri-cultural teachers in the school, the student can be led, rather than driven, to the arts and the sciences, which are “embraced” by agriculture. Second, in the past agriculture has lost many talented pupils because they were simply not aware of the opportunities in agriculture or else were not prepared to study an agricultural course after leaving school. The commonly held belief that if you cannot afford a farm then you cannot get into agriculture has been dispelled by vocational agriculture programmes. Pupils learn of the tremendous effort and associated job opportunities that go into backing up the farmer. Statistics in the United States indicate that it requires five agribusiness people to back up each farmer, and that the number will increase as the demand for specialisation continues to grow.

Third, if agricultural education was to be regarded as the prerogative of agricultural universities, then a great number of students could miss out on any formal teaching in agriculture. This is because only a small percentage of school leavers ever complete a university education and only a certain percentage of school leavers will attend vocational and technical institutes.

The advocates maintain that within vocational agricultural high schools the framework exists to give some training to the majority of students interested in an agriculture-re-lated vocation. They certainly do not see this as being a complete agricultural education, but they consider it desirable for students who do not intend to carry on with formal agricultural education and as beneficial background knowledge for those students who wish to proceed to the tertiary level. The important point is that if some students do not get agricultural instruction at high school, where do they get it? A measure of the success of vocational agriculture can be seen in the state of Colorado in the United States. In a study made there, vocational agricultural pupils were assessed five years after they left school.

It was found that 69 per cent were still engaged in agriculturally-related vocations.

An interesting aspect of vocation agricultural systems is that in the majority of countries the agricultural universities train students who, upon graduating, are employed as teachers in high schools. This training is accomplished by the provision within the bachelor of agricultural science degiee structure of an undergraduate major called “vocational agriculture.” Within this major the student can concentrate on any one of the following aspects depending on his interests: agricultural distribution, agricultural mechanics, horticulture, or production agriculture. Unfortunately, the vocational agriculture teacher is often drawn off into industry where remuneration is greater. The reason for this is that after three or four years of practical experience the teacher acquires such a broad, well rounded understanding of agriculture that he can fit into any number of slots of agri-business. In the United States the turnover of teachers is about 20 per cent per year.

What o'f agricultural edu-

cation in New Zealand high schools? At present the decline in the number of high schools teaching agricultural subjects, which occurred during the period 1950 to 1970, has been arrested, but the situation is still serious.

It is the writer’s opinion that there is a demand for agricultural courses, especially in the rural areas, but the attitude of the Education Department has not been one of active encouragement, and very few school principals are prepared to challenge this attitude.

The reasons given for the teaching of vocational agriculture in high schools in other countries are applicable to New Zealand. In a country where agricultural products earn more than 80 per cent of the nation’s income, and where a highly skilled and informed agricultural work force is essential, these reasons are of national significance.