EDUCATION The education pathway for those wanting to pursue a career in sports turf management has now been fully endorsed by government and industry
Generational
change National Turf Education Working Group co-chair Albert Sherry updates the industry on the recent sports turf
I
management training package endorsement by the Australian Industry and Skills Commission.
t is with much satisfaction that I report the finalisation and government endorsement of the new sports turf management training package. At the 27th meeting of the Australian Industry and Skills Commission held on 13 August 2019, the revised sports turf management qualifications were fully endorsed as part of Version Four of the Agriculture, Horticulture and Conservation and Land Management (AHC) Training Package. This follows several frustrated attempts by industry over a decade to get Agrifoods to develop the qualification to meet their requirements, including lifting the number of units above 16, in order to reflect real industry roles and work functions. Skills forecasts for the AHC Training Package identified the following skills and knowledge to be addressed by the project, which was the starting place for a review of the AHC sports turf management units of competency: l Use of advancing technology in monitoring of turf surface health and usability (e.g. portable soil moisture/ salinity and temp sensors; weed and disease predicting software incorporating weather stations; GPS technology for marking out turf areas, weed/disease locating and mapping, etc.); 74
l
l
Use of growth regulators as an integral part of surface maintenance; and Use of GPS, hydraulics, hybrid/battery machines (e.g. GPS driven equipment.)
WORKFORCE ANALYSIS A workforce functional analysis (WFA) was undertaken with industry subject matter experts (SMEs) at the beginning of the project. SMEs were drawn from most states, with representation from education institutions, sports fields, bowls, cricket and golf. The WFA established the nature of the work functions required for each qualification. In the initial meeting, four key roles were identified in the sports turf management industry for the workforce analysis. It became evident that the titles for these job roles vary slightly within different parts of the industry
and across various states and territories. The key roles were restated as follows: l Grounds person (pre trade) – aligned to Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) Level 2; l Sports turf tradesperson – aligned to AQF Level 3; l Assistant turf manager/assistant golf course manager – aligned to AQF Level 4; l Sports turf manager – aligned to AQF Level 5.
REVIEW OF UNITS AND QUALIFICATIONS The SME group reviewed a total of 16 turf specific units of competency and one soil unit all relating to sports turf management training packages. A review was then undertaken of the qualifications, with the outcome being;
TABLE 1. 2017 ENROLMENTS BY STATE AND TERRITORY1 AHC20910 AHC20916 AHC31310 AHC31316 AHC40812 AHC40816 AHC51010 AHC51016 1
Certificate Certificate Certificate Certificate Certificate Certificate Diploma Diploma
NSW VIC QLD SA WA TAS ACT Total II 2 4 3 0 2 9 0 20 II 0 0 5 0 27 1 0 33 III 213 209 86 46 72 18 1 647 III 181 122 85 21 9 7 42 468 IV 9 0 7 0 6 0 0 22 IV 16 0 0 0 10 0 0 26 4 36 7 0 0 3 0 50 12 62 0 0 0 0 0 74
AHC enrolment figures taken from the National Centre for Vocational Education Research’s Vocstats
AUSTRALIAN TURFGRASS MANAGEMENT 21.5