NSW & ACT
Issue 1 - 2012 The Journal of the Careers Adviser’s Association of New South Wales Inc.
Past Presidents
Hilary Bolin Award
1976-1978
Angela Glover
1988
Ted Hyslop (dec)
1978-1979
Graeme McKenzie
1989
Yvonne Hardy
1979-1983
Beverley Bower
1990
Diedre Matthews
1983-1986
Judy Sims
1992
Bea Chandler (dec)
1986-1987
Greg Hyde
1994
Gil Morris
1987-1988
Narelle Caphy
1995
John Kay/David Mitchell
1988-1990
Sandra Cormack
1996
June Martinez
1990-1991
Robyn Graham
1997
Karen Pisk
1991-1995
Robyn Townsend
1998
Robyn Smythe
1995-1996
Cherylle Stone
1999
Bill Goldie
1996-2000
Jill Lummis
2001
Barbara McCauley
2000-2008
Mike Geeves
2002
Julianne Allan
2009-present
Sue Sundstrom
2003
Janet Kossy/Lee Osborne
2004
Mike Robertson
2005
Len Eagles
Life Members
2006
Anne Cheetham
Beverley Bower
2007
Ken Blake
Lyn Camp
2008
Sue Maclean
Sandra Cormack
2009
Amanda Hinde
Gwen Dennis (dec)
2010
Judy Dowdell
Margaret Gambley
2011
Cathy Browne
Mike Geeves Angela Glover
Careers Advisers of the Year
Robyn Graham
2002
Lindy Widauer
Alf Hinshaw
2003
Helen Fondas
2004
Steve Ormond
2005
Steve Heinecke
2006
Adrianna Lynn
2007
Christine Ferguson
2008
Phil Williamson
2009
Jeff Griffiths
2010
Danielle Kedward
2011
Maria Chubb
Jo Howard John Kay Jill Lummis June Martinez Gil Morris Judy Sims Judy Stinson Robyn Townsend Keith Underwood
Margaret Gambley Medal
Tania Burgmann
2011
Bill Goldie
Julie Tocchini
Jean Turnbull
Brian Freney
NSW & ACT
Contents CAA Executive for 2012................................................................................................................................................. 2 2012 CAA President Report........................................................................................................................................... 3 2012 CAA Vice President Reports.................................................................................................................................. 4 2012 CAA Executive Reports......................................................................................................................................... 6 Career Industry Council of Australia Update............................................................................................................... 13 2012 Free & Subsidised Professional Development Program..................................................................................... 18 CAA Website Update................................................................................................................................................... 20 CAA Conference 2011.................................................................................................................................................. 23 Careers Advsier of the Year 2011................................................................................................................................ 24 Professor Gail Whiteford ‘Beyond the Divide’............................................................................................................. 29 Geoff Bell ‘Careers in the Agriculture Value Chain: Endless Opportunites’................................................................ 38 Alison McIntosh ‘You don’t have to live in the City or Country to have a Rewarding Career in Agriculture’............. 48 Kirsty John ‘Marketing & Communication of Event Management in the Agricultural Industry’................................ 49 Lynne Strong ‘ Art4Agriculture - Connecting Young People with the Land’................................................................ 56 Annable Gay ‘ The Country Education Foundation of Australia’................................................................................. 58 Web Tools for Learning about Careers in Agriculture................................................................................................. 61 UAC Update & Calculation of ATAR............................................................................................................................ 64 Trudy Glasgow ‘Career Opportunities for Young People Passionate about Primary Industries’................................. 69 Sue Gazis’ Careers Advisers & the Institute of Teachers’........................................................................................... 71 Teach NSW - Teach Scholarships................................................................................................................................ 78 Jiig-Cal - Personality & Career Guidance.................................................................................................................... 82 Karen Penrose ‘National Career Development Week’................................................................................................ 85 CSU Book Review........................................................................................................................................................ 86 The views presented in this publication are not necessarily those of the editorial team or the CAA Executive Committee. The CAA does not necessarily endorse any product that may be advertised in or with this publication. The CAA Executive, via the Editor of Prospects, reserves the right to refuse publication of articles submitted for publication and/or to edit articles accepted for publication. Though all reasonable checks are made, no guarantee can be made to the accuracy of any material appearing in, or included with this journal. The information contained in Prospects is copyright and may be reproduced for educational purposes. Registered by Australia Post , Publication No 255003/03995 Editing – Jenine Smith, Careers Adviser, Marist Sisters College Woolwich Publishing & Printing – SNAP PRINTING INGLEBURN Ph 02 9605 9499 Contributions welcome Please send to Po Box 790 INGLEBURN NSW 1890 or email admin@caa.nsw.edu.au
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CAA Inc Executive for 2012 President
Professional Development
Communications Officer
Sue Sundstrom
Officer
Jenine Smith
Picton High School
Liri Latimore
Marist Sisters College Woolwich
Phone: 4677 3257 Fax: 4677 3257
Macarthur Girls High School
Phone: 9816 2041
susan.sundstrom@det.nsw.edu.au
Phone: 9683 1866 Fax: 9890 1992
smith@mscw.catholic.edu.au
LIRRIA.LATIMORE@det.nsw.edu.au Vice-President Government
Representative to CICA
Arthur Zigas
Executive Officer Administration
Sue Sundstrom
Kingsgrove North High School
Alison Muscat
Picton High School
Phone: 9502 3933
Phone: 9605 5858 Fax: 9605 5858
Phone: 4677 3257 Fax: 4677 3257
arthur.zigas@det.nsw.edu.au
admin@caa.nsw.edu.au
susan.sundstrom@det.nsw.edu.au
Vice-President
Secretary
Representative to PTC
Non- Government
Lyn Camp
Sue Sundstrom
Susan Stewart
CAA
Picton High School
Bethlehem College
Phone: 0413 422 317 Fax: 9618 1153
Phone: 4677 3257 Fax: 4677 3257
Phone: 9798 9099 Fax: 9799 4105
info@caa.nsw.edu.au
susan.sundstrom@det.nsw.edu.au
Assistant Secretary
Representative to PTC
Treasurer
Mike Geeves
Stuart Jones
Stuart Jones
Penrith Christian School
Inaburra
Inaburra
Phone: 4736 4044
Phone: 9543 2533 Fax: 9543 7514
Phone: 9543 2533 Fax: 9543 7514
mgeeves@pcs.nsw.edu.au
joness@inaburra.nsw.edu.au
stesus@bcashfield.catholic.edu.au
joness@inaburra.nsw.edu.au Public Officer Membership/Awards
Sue Sundstrom
Jeff Griffiths
Picton High School
Erskine Park High School
Phone: 4677 3257 Fax: 4677 3257
Phone: 9834 3536 Fax: 9834 3864
susan.sundstrom@det.nsw.edu.au
jeffrey.griffiths@det.nsw.edu.au
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2012 President Report PRESIDENT Sue Sundstrom
Dear Colleagues As President of your professional Association, my duty is to: (a) Represent and stand for the Association (b) Preside over general meetings of the Association and meetings of the Executive Committee (c) Be in charge of the business of the Association, and other officers of the Association (d) Prepare the annual report of the activities of the Associations As we settle into the new year I welcome two new members to the executive, Arthur Zigas as Vice President-Government Schools and Jenine Smith as Communications Officer. Both have already made a significant impact on the running of the Association. Arthur has worked to provide CAA NSW & ACT with a Facebook presence while Jenine is making her mark on the next editions of Prospects.
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I would also like to welcome Mike Geeves back to the Executive Committee as Assistant Secretary. Mike brings a wealth of experience to the Association and the Executive. I would also like to publicly thank Richard Harding, Bronwyn Hull and Karen Murray, outgoing Executive members for their work for the Executive and for our members. CAANSW & ACT is about Careers Advisers working for Careers Advisers so please consider how you can support your Association. Become a member of the executive or volunteer for sub-committees. Share your knowledge through contributions to our professional journal or lead a workshop at Annual Conference. I look forward to meeting experienced and new Careers Advisers at the many professional development activities, university days and at conference. Yours in Careers Sue Sundstrom President CAA NSW & ACT 2012
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Vice President’s Report - Government Schools ARTHUR ZIGAS
Greetings members of the CAA. I am hoping you are all having a productive year thus far. This is my first year working with the executive team. I feel it’s a great privilege to be surrounded by such a committed and enthusiastic team of people who have a common passion in doing their utmost to support the work of Careers Advisers within all school sectors in NSW and the ACT. As Vice President of Government schools, I aim to be a voice for members who may have issues or concerns regarding their role as a Careers Adviser. Whether you are ‘new’ or ‘experienced’ in your Careers role, there will always be times when we need assistance or clarification regarding aspects of our work. I will do my best to support our members wherever I can! You will get a chance to catch up with me at the various Careers events lined up this year, so make sure you come over and say hello! In our ongoing efforts to provide Careers related information to all members as soon as it hits our desk, the question at CAA was not “whether” but “when” we were going to implement a Social Media Strategy. Today, 43% of Australian small businesses are using to use Social Media for marketing their business and attracting new customers. I have been working closely with Alison Muscat (Executive Officer Administration) to develop CAA’s presence on Facebook. We would like all members who have access to facebook to do the following:
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•
•
Do a facebook search for: Careers Advisers Association of NSW & ACT Inc or type http://www. facebook.com/careersadvisers in the address bar of your web browser and Hit the like button on the CAA facebook page so that you are kept up to date with all that is happening with the association.
The CAA team are really excited about our presence on facebook because it allows you to access our information on the go from your smartphone to your tablet PC. The real joy for me is that the page is interactive and anyone who accesses it will have the opportunity to write or post content on the wall. This way we will all be able to communicate and network with one another easier and more frequently than we have ever done before. I hope that members take the opportunity to embrace the new way we deal with each other because this technology will be with us for a number of years to come. I look forward to working with you in my role as Vice President. Wishing you the best, Arthur Zigas arthur.zigas@det.nsw.edu.au
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Vice President’s Report - Non Government Schools SUSAN STEWART
During the last 6 months I have met many Career Advisers at career events, the Conference and a focus group at the University of Sydney. Career Advisers working together are helping CAs get the information they want in the way they need it. The importance of the work of school Careers Advisers is vital to our young people and we aim to protect and promote the status as professional career development practitioners specialising in Career Education. Your contribution to this would be greatly valued in participating in the Conference Sub-Committee. Your ideas and experience will assist in shaping the Conferences in the next few years. The new Career Adviser’s Guide has been updated and if you have any suggestions for resources to be added I would appreciate your contributions. The role of the Careers Adviser is a privileged and highly complex one with never ending tasks with a different role in each school. Change continues to take place with the added task of assisting young people who wish to leave school early in the process. Concerns about the future costs of TAFE courses continue due to a push from the Commonwealth to make TAFE Institutes compete against private organisations for public funding. Under proposed changes Vocational Education and Training costs would be passed on to students under a HECS-
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style loan which they would have to repay like University students. While advanced skills are necessary for everyone to reach their career aspirations, it would be disappointing if students had a debt due to a TAFE course. TAFE Institutes in regional Victoria have had financial difficulties due to this funding model. We have been promoting the role of the Career Adviser through publications that will be available to all. I have heard from a few Careers Advisers at Independent schools that they are being classified as support staff rather than teaching staff, therefore forfeiting a number of conditions including holiday pay. It has also been seen that positions have been advertised which encourage existing support staff members to apply for the position of a Careers Adviser, without having appropriate training or qualifications. I would like to hear from anyone who has these concerns at their school so that we can discuss this further at an Executive level. I look forward to seeing you at career events, professional development activities and the Conference this year. Please feel free to put forward your concerns and contact me at any time. Sue Stewart stesus@bcashfield.catholic.edu.au
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2012 Executive Reports SECRETARY Lyn Camp
What is the role of Secretary in an Association such as ours? Out Constitution states that, ‘The Secretary shall: (a) receive, file and preserve, where required, correspondence of the Association; (b) send out notices and agenda for general meetings and Executive Committee meetings; (c) oversee the administration of the Association webpage; (d) compile and send “CAANSW E-news” as required; (e) liaise with Association sponsors as required; (f) liaise with printer to ensure all Association documentation is printed as required; (g) acknowledge or answer correspondence as required by the Executive Committee; (h) keep minutes of: (i)
all appointments of office-bearers and members of the Executive Committee;
(ii) the names of members of the Executive Committee present at an Executive Committee meeting or a general meeting;
The CAA is fortunate to employ the services of an Executive Officer, so many of these administrative functions are carried out by Alison, our very capable Executive Officer. Some of my time is spent liaising with Alison to ensure that all runs smoothly. But by far the biggest part of my role these days is talking to Careers Advisers and helping them to sort out some of the questions and problems that they have. CAs still feel that they are isolated, and the fact that they are usually ‘one-offs’ in a school means that they do not have the advantage of talking to colleagues to discuss issues. This makes the wider Careers Network, of which CAA is a part, very important to them. While I do not pretend to have all the answers, I have been around ‘forever’, and usually can offer a little assistance, even if it is only to point you in the right direction to get the answers you require. Sometimes you just want a sympathetic ear and an opportunity to tell someone else about your issues. I am happy to fill that role. If I can be of assistance to you, feel free to ring me on 0413422317. Lyn Camp
(iii) proceedings at Executive Committee meetings and general meetings.; (i)
utilise the assistant secretary as required.’
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2012 Executive Reports Treasurer Stuart Jones
As Treasurer of CAA, it is my role to: (a) ensure that all money due to the Association is collected and received and that all payments authorised by the Association are made;
We remain in a sound financial position and our focus on the longer term remains one of our key objectives. To that end, in the last year we have relaunched our website with online payment of membership fees so that it is easier to renew your membership each year. We also hope this online presence will encourage further financial support from sponsors.
(b) ensure that correct books and accounts are kept showing the financial affairs of the Association, including full details of all receipts and expenditure We are indebted to our major sponsors and thank of the Association; them for supporting CAA so strongly. We are pleased (c) maintain the financial records of the Association; to have as our 2012 Platinum Sponsors: University of Wollongong, TAFE NSW, and teachNSW; And our 2012 (d) ensure that financial statements are: a. prepared in accordance with the Associations Gold sponsors: Bond University, Charles Sturt University, Incorporation Act 2009 and associated regulations; UTS:Insearch, Australian College of Applied Psychology, JIIG-CAL, and Macquarie Community College. b. lodged in the required form and by the required date each year with the New South Wales Department Our new system of Professional Development, where of Fair Trading. selected events will be subsidised by CAA, aims to (e) arrange for an annual audit of the Association’s create an equitable distribution of funds by providing a accounts to be undertaken and the reports of that cross section of opportunities. It is important that we run services demanded by our members that strongly audit to be reported to the Executive Committee; relate to the work they do on a day-to-day basis. We (f) prepare a statement of income and payments for are looking forward to financing some exciting new audit prior to the annual general meeting; programs, culminating in Conference. (g) maintain a list of financial members; (h) ensure that a nominated member of the Executive Committee is familiar with the treasurer’s work so that the nominated member may help or may be appointed acting treasurer by the Executive Committee if the necessity arises.
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2012 Executive Reports COMMUNICATIONS Jenine Smith
As Communications Officer my role is defined fairly simply under the Constitution – to produce and distribute Association Publications and to facilitate communication within the Association. For 2012 I am hoping to focus and develop the second of these job requirements. With technology allowing much easier communication between members the hope is to continue to keep you well informed of Professional Development opportunities, information events at various educational institutions as well as network gatherings and ways to communicate between ourselves to help each other out. For the majority of Careers Advisors we are the one person faculty without the opportunity to bounce ideas off a colleague or learn and gain knowledge. At certain times of the year all we seem to do it spend our day talking to students without out a break for some adult conversation. For teachers this can be quite challenging as by nature we are creatures who thrive on conversation and interaction with other teachers.
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This is why it is very important that we all endeavour to seek each other out and why Careers Advisors are very good at generously supporting each other. In an effort to continue this support and foster stronger opportunities for communication between us all the CAA are looking to develop opportunities for Careers Advisors to interact and learn more. We currently have Prospects and Conference plus a greatly expanded website and are looking into the world of social media as well as updating our network contacts. Expanding communication needs communication from our members to let us know what it is that you need in terms of support, knowledge and information. Please take the time to communicate with me to let me know what you think. smith@mscw.catholic.edu.au
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2012 Executive Reports PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT OFFICER Liri Latimore
We would also like to promote and encourage the value of CAA Networks. They are a valuable source to members who are in a unique position in most schools of being the only staff member in the Careers Department. To assist in this process, we are aware of most Networks and their convenors, however there are some areas whose Networks we are not aware of and /or do not have contacts for. We would appreciate the convenors of Networks please contact CAA by emailing Alison at • Project Management (North Sydney) admin@ca.nsw.edu.au with contact details and schools • Engaging Generation Y in Career Exploration in your Network so we may have an accurate list. If you (Hunter Valley) do not have a Network in your area can we help to set • All aspects of Creating a Brilliant PowerPoint one up? Refer to the list of networks included in this issue to see if you have a Network. Sharing experiences presentation! (Fox Studios) and resources is so much easier these days. It is also • E-Recruitment, Blog Ed, & Social Media (Parramatta) a very important way to help Careers Advisers develop • Communication via Digital & Social Media their skills, knowledge, resources and contacts. (Wollongong) 2012 is shaping up as an exciting year in Professional • The Automotive Industry - Everything CAs Need to Development! Remember to check on how you can Know (Emu Plains) meet your required professional development hours. • Bridging the gap to uni for low SES & raising Under the Professional Guidelines we are required to complete a minimum of 15 hours Professional aspirations of students (Bathurst) Development each calendar year. Don’t forget your • Dealing with Teenagers & Conflict Management Network meetings and Conference contribute to these (St Leonards) 15 hours. Conference alone can provide over half your Professional Development hours. Details (date, time, location, cost and detailed course information) are available on our website at http:// www.caa.nsw.edu.au/event_list.php In 2012, the Executive Committee decided to change and update the approach to Professional Development for Careers Adviser members of the Careers Advisers’ Association of NSW & ACT (CAA). We are now offering a range of free and CAA subsidised Professional Development activities for our members in the following areas:
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2012 Executive Reports Memberships & Awards Jeff Griffiths
My role as the Awards & Membership Officer of CAA The Hilary Bolin Award The Hilary Bolin Award was created by the executive of keeps me busy! It is my job to: the CAA in 1988 to honour Hilary Bolin. This followed her (a) oversee the procedure and process for Association death whilst she was the Careers Adviser at Carlingford High School. Hilary was also Assistant Secretary of awards; the CAA, a position she held for many years. She was (b) distribute the information concerning Association extremely committed to the development and extension activities, procedures and publications to new of Career Education in its many guises. Hilary was a members; quiet achiever who worked diligently both in her own (c) advise and assist new members of the Association; school and behind the scenes at many a careers event. The Award is given each year at Conference as it is the (d) establish networks of communication between: CAA’s own Award to acknowledge its own. As such, the (i) new members; criteria to be nominated for this award are three fold. (ii) new members and Networks; The person must be a Careers Adviser in NSW and a (iii) new members and the Executive Committee member of CAA who: during the initial period of membership.
•
In relation to the awards aspect of my role, I thought I would take the opportunity to let everyone know the awards which are available for Careers Advisers in NSW & ACT. The following is a description of the awards that • are available each year: •
has given their skills to developing an understanding and knowledge in Career Education with students; teachers; community members; and support agencies through their school responsibilities; and is involved on a professional level outside the school for services to other Careers Advisers and to the CAA; and has been selfless in their approach and has committed themselves to hours beyond normal expectations to ensure that outcomes for students and teachers are worthwhile.
Recipients are nominated by their colleagues via a written submission which addresses each of the three criteria listed above. Nomination forms, are available on the CAA website.
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The Careers Adviser of the Year Award This award was introduced in 2003, and is designed to recognise Careers Advisers who are members of CAA and who are making significant contributions in their school. Applicants are judged on the basis of their contribution in ALL of the following areas • • • • •
student assistance; innovative programming; cross-curriculum contribution; district/network contribution and community involvement; professional development.
Achievements in other areas are also taken into consideration in judging the award. Nominations must be received from Principals using the prescribed Nomination Form. A judging panel is comprised of a Careers Adviser in a Government School, a Careers Adviser in a NonGovernment School, and a representative from TAFE NSW. The panel decides the finalists and winner, and this decision is ratified by the Executive of CAA. This is an Annual Award and is awarded at the CAA Annual Conference each year.
Margaret Gambley Exemplary Service Medal This award is given, in the year of their retirement from their careers position, to members of CAA who have provided service to the Association either through their membership of the executive, or through their contribution to their local area, over a considerable period of time (in excess of 7 years). There are no limits to the number awarded each year. Nominations are to be approved at the absolute discretion of the Executive Committee. Recipients are nominated by their colleagues via a written submission using the designated Nomination Form. Margaret Gambley worked tirelessly in the early 1970’s to have DET establish the position of Careers Adviser in NSW schools, and was fundamental in having this position created. Margaret is also regarded as the architect of CAA, and was responsible for the creation of our Association in 1973. Her contribution to the development of CAA was continuous and enthusiastic over the next 30 years. In her retirement Margaret continues to support both Careers Advisers and our Association. Margaret has not missed one Conference since the Association was established, and in retirement, continues to come to every conference dinner. Those who know Margaret affectionately refer to her as ‘the mother of careers’, a title richly deserved! Jeff Griffiths
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2012 Executive Reports EXECUTIVE OFFICER - ADMINISTRATION Alison Muscat
We had a busy year last year with all the work on the new CAA website, policy revisions, and a complete overhaul of all of CAA’s membership and Conference forms.
Pre-Conference Professional Development will include some College tours followed by a Careers Advisers Round Table where you can share resources, ideas and programs with other Careers Advisers. There will also be a cocktail party on Thursday evening before the We completed the acceptance of all ACT Careers Conference. Advisers as members of CAA, and we are now proud to represent Careers Advisers in both NSW and ACT. We are pleased to have the following sponsors on board for 2012 – I am looking after Conference this year, taking over the reigns from Lyn Camp who is easing into retirement Platinum Sponsors: at the end of this year. Conference 2012 will be held University of Wollongong, TAFE NSW, and teachNSW; at Dockside Cockle Bay (Darling Harbour) on Friday 26 October 2012 and will include a range of Pre-Conference Gold sponsors: Professional Development Activities on Thursday 25 Bond University, Charles Sturt University, UTS:Insearch, October 2012 and a Conference dinner cruise aboard Australian College of Applied Psychology, JIIG-CAL, and Captain Cook’s John Cadman II. Some of the topics at Macquarie Community College. this year’s Conference are: As always, I will keep you posted on all the latest news • Evaluating Your Careers Service; through our e-newsletters. • Best Practice in Careers Advising; Please don’t hesitate to contact me any time. • The Habits of Highly Effective Careers Advisers; • • • • •
Social Media for Careers Advisers (including Check us out on Facebook! Facebook, Twitter and Moodle); www.facebook.com/careersadvisers Careers Advising and Careers Programs on a Alison Muscat, Executive Officer Shoestring Budget; Careers Advisers Association of NSW & ACT Inc. Changes to Resume Formats; PO Box 790, Ingleburn NSW 1890 The Changing Role of Careers Advisers; Phone: 02 9605 5858 Fax: 02 9605 5858 Email: admin@caa.nsw.edu.au Careers in Changing and Emerging Occupations.
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Career Industry Council of Australia Update 2012 Update Peter Tatham Peter Tatham is the Executive Director of CICA and will be providing us with regular updates.
“The Career Industry Council of Australia offers its sincere appreciation to the thousands of career professionals who contributed to the implementation of Professional Standards for Australian Career Development Practitioners which came into effect on January 1, 2012.” Bernadette Gigliotti President of CICA
Professional Standards for Australian Career Development Practitioners
Future Direction of CICA
The Professional Standards will be officially launched by Minister Peter Garrett on March 1st at Parliament House in Canberra. Soon after, member associations will distribute a Certificate of Acknowledgement to eligible members together with a copy of the updated standards. [who are eligible members?]
CICA President Bernadette Gigliotti highlighted recently that “Over the next decade in keeping with our mission CICA will continue to provide national leadership for the career industry”. “It is important that we strengthen quality with the ongoing development of frameworks that encourage whole of life approaches to career development and that career development be a core focus of the life development of all Australians. “she said.
After more than 6 years of progressive implementation, we are now a profession with a responsibility to uphold our code of ethics and to continue to develop ourselves and our work for the benefit of our clients and our country.
Ms Gigliotti said “It is critical that CICA member Associations’ members have greater input into CICA to ensure we represent the diversity of interests of our industry.”
The minimum qualification for a professional career development practitioner is a post graduate certificate or vocational graduate certificate. To date, CICA has endorsed courses that meet the standards at Australian Catholic University, Edith Cowan University, James Cook University, Queensland University of Technology, RMIT, University of Queensland, University of Southern Queensland and Auckland University of Technology. Two vocational graduate certificates are currently under consideration.
We welcome and look forward to your comments and input over the coming year. [Do we have an email we can provide feedback to?]
The Professional Standards for Australian Career Development Practitioners have been internationally recognised as providing a best practice model for the
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career industry The Standards are a living document. They were first agreed to by CICA member Associations in 2006 and it is timely to review them to ensure that they continue to reflect the requirements for our profession. In particular, The Standards have raised the professionalism of the Career industry in Australia and through the continued work of CICA they can be enhanced to improve the specialisations required to work with specific cohorts within the Australian community. If you would like to make a submission to CICA as part of the review to enhance the Standards please contact Peter Tatham at peter.tatham@cica.org.au. And if groups would like more information on the standards, CICA will be conducting webinars and presentations on the Standards and address questions individuals or groups may have. For more information contact Peter Tatham peter.tatham@cica.org.au. Vocational Education and Training Since its formation nearly a decade ago, CICA has been to committed to improving the quality of Career Development services for all Australians. A significant number of reports highlight a gap in the quality and availability of Career Services in the VET sector. Career management skills are a fundamental element of employability skills and need to be incorporated in VET courses. CICA is implementing a two stage approach to the development of guiding principles to inform improvements to career service delivery in the VET sector. We have commissioned the National Centre for Vocational Education and Research to produce a paper identifying issues that impact upon the provision of effective career development for VET learners. The paper is now available at http://www.cica.org.au/ research/cica-research-papers
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NCVER are currently developing draft guiding principles on behalf of CICA which will be available in May this year. CICA is also seeking to form partnerships with the VET sector and to date has agreements with place with ACPET. Career Services for young people with a disability Nationally there is also a need to improve the quality of Career Services for young people with a disability. CICA has commissioned a research paper to identify effective career development interventions and to develop a draft set of guiding principles to assist organisations to better understand opportunities for improving Career Development services for this group. The research paper will be available on the CICA web site by mid April and guiding principles will be developed and distributed by June 2012. Parent engagement resource The importance of parental engagement for the achievement of desirable education and career development learning outcomes has been recognised by educators and Career Practitioners for many decades. Parents/guardians are key influences and essential to effective career planning. Yet, achievement of high levels of parental engagement in the career development process is mixed. CICA is currently developing a resource of examples of good practice in engaging parents/guardians in career development activities. The resource will be available electronically by May 2012. We hope to use this guide as a starting point for the collection of further examples of successful practice.
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CICA signs MOU with the Korea Research Institute In addition CICA has appointed Luke McCormack as for Vocational Education and Research CICA Communications Officer. Luke has an excellent communications background having worked in the public, On November 2, 2011 the Career Industry Council of private and university sectors over many years. Luke has Australia (CICA) signed a Memorandum of Understanding managed strategic communications for large projects with the Korea Research Institute for Vocational and programs, undertaken stakeholder engagement, Education and Training (KRIVET) to work toward the held positions managing media issues for government development of an Asia Pacific Career Development and liaising between various levels of political offices. Network (APCDN). Our initial focus will be to; Luke has considerable experience in Event Management, having once managed an event for 12,000 people. • Develop protocols for a sustainable APCDN; • Collaborate to undertake a regional scan/snapshot CICA would also like to acknowledge the work of Karen of current career development service programs in Penrose over the past three years. Karen will be focusing each country connected to the network. on the ‘Getting the life you love’ campaign including National Career Development Week for CICA. The establishment of an APCDN has the potential to contribute to a better understanding of career Sector news development approaches across the region. KRIVET agreed to take a leadership role for a period of three From 15 December 2011, the Department of Industry, years to establish the network Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education was established. Tertiary and Vocational New CICA staff Education will transfer from DEEWR to this new department. CICA has recently appointed Ellen Fleming as CICA Project Officer. Ellen has a strong background in career The National Career Development Strategy consultations development with experience in industry, education and have been completed and it is hoped that DEEWR will career association management, Ellen was involved release the four reports and the strategy in the near with the CEAV since the early 1990s and has served future. on the committee, vice president and President in 1999 and has filled supporting role in the CEAV office at The recent International Symposium on Career various times. Ellen has had broad range experience as Development and Public Policy held in Hungary a teaching/careers counsellor in the state and private asserted that access to Career Services was a right secondary school sectors. During 2006 - 2009 she was of all citizens. It recommended that the role of career employed as the National Industry Career Specialist development systems and services need to be linked for the Resources and Infrastructure sector as part the more strongly to policy priorities, including those Federal Government’s Career Advice Australia. designed to support economic growth (e.g. skills strategies) or reduce costs (e.g. reducing drop-out).And Ellen also worked as Senior Project Officer in the to secure an appropriate balance between targeting Post Compulsory Pathways Branch of the Victorian intensive services to those who need them most, and Department of Education & Training from 2000 to 2003. providing core services to all (avoiding ‘marginalising the mainstream’).
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From CICA’s perspective an important recommendation 3. Build closer links between policy-makers, professional associations, employers and training in the communiquÊ encouraged countries to bodies, to ensure that professional standards and training provision are informed by developments in 1. Develop strong professional standards, linked to policy and practice, and lead innovation rather than strong quality-assurance frameworks, to cover a lagging behind it (e.g. in relation to using labour variety of roles in a variety of different sectors – market intelligence and harnessing technology distinguishing core competencies from specialist competencies. Governments may wish to provide some financial support for the relevant professional CICA has progressed these recommendations over association(s) or sector body to manage this the past few years and we look forward to stronger cooperation with all governments to further enhance process. career development in Australia over the coming decades 2. Link the standards to national qualification frameworks, with recognition of prior learning, and with progression pathways into, within, and beyond the careers profession.
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Annual Conference FRIDAY
26th OCTOBER
10am to 2pm Bus College Tour of various colleges including the Australian Film, Television & Radio School & lunch @ Fox Studios
@Dockside Darling Harbour Conference Dinner Cruise aboard Captain Cook’s John Cadman II. 7pm to 10pm
Careers Advising & Careers Programs on a Shoestring Budget The Changing Role of Careers Advisers & Future Directions Social Media for Careers Advisers including Facebook, Twitter & Moodle
Optional Pre-Conference Activities Thursday 25th October 2012
9am to 5pm
Best Practice in Careers Advising – Techniques of Highly Effective Careers Advisers
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2pm to 4.30pm Careers Advisers Round Table – Sharing Resources, Programs and Ideas 5pm to 7pm Conference Delegates Cocktail Party Member Prices
Friday Day Only & Pre-Conference Professional Development Activities on Thursday $290 + GST Full Conference Including Friday, Dinner and Pre-Conference Professional Development Activities on Thursday $350 + GST
Careers in Emerging and Changing Occupations New Expectations and Requirements for Resumes & All About Careers Testing Options
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2012 Free & Subsidised Professional Development Program In 2012, we are offering a range of free and CAA subsidised professional development activities for our members. For those seminars where there is a charge, it is $20+GST for a half day and $40+GST for a full day. Details as follows: Date
Seminar
Venue
Time
30th Apr 2012
CAA Subsidised PD Activity - Project Management
TAFE Northern Sydney Institute, 149 10.00am West Street, Crows Nest to 2.00pm
7th May 2012
CAA Subsidised PD Activity - Engaging Generation Y in Career Exploration
Hunter Valley Hotel Academy @ Kurri Kurri TAFE
9.00am to 4.00pm
10th May 2012
CAA Subsidised PD Activity - All aspects of creating a brilliant PowerPoint presentation!
Australian Film, Television & Radio School, Extertainment Quarter Fox Studio, Bent Street Moore Park
9.30am to 4.30pm
18th Jun 2012
CAA Free PD Activity - E-Recruitment, Blog Ed, Social Media & Teaching as a Career
UWS - Campus To Be Confirmed
9.00am to 1.00pm
20th Jul 2012
CAA Subsidised PD Activity - Communication via University of Wollongong Digital & Social Media
10.00am to 2.00pm
14th Aug 2012
CAA Subsidised PD Activity - The Automotive Industry - Everything CAs Need to Know
Automotive Workshop, McCarthy Trade Training Centre Emu Plains
9.30am to 11.30am
28th Sep 2012
CAA Subsidised PD Activity - Dealing with Teenagers & Conflict Management
Jansen Newman Institute, 575 Pacific Highway St Leonards
10.00am to 2.00pm
9th Nov 2012
CAA Subsidised PD Activity - Bridging the gap to Charles Sturt University - Bathurst uni for low SES & raising aspirations of students Campus
10.00am to 2.00pm
Full course information is available on our website at http://www.caa.nsw.edu.au/event_list.php. Registrations are online via the CAA website only. You may register for as many seminars as you wish. You may withdraw from a seminar not less than 7 days before the event. Where you withdraw from a seminar or fail to attend on the day, you will be required to pay for the cost of your attendance as set out in the event details on our website. For more information and to register your interest to attend these seminars, go to our website at http://www.caa. nsw.edu.au/event_list.php, click on the event name for the detailed seminar information, and then click on the button to “Register Your Interest To Attend This Event�.
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Lead the way Graduate Diploma in Career Education and Development RMIT is the leading provider of career education, counseling and development training in Australia. Graduates can expect to develop competencies in career education, training, development and counseling for human resource specialists, teachers, student counselors, private practitioners, outplacement and career transition consultants, case managers and information officers. Courses are delivered online, providing you with an engaging and flexible learning process that lets you balance study, work and family life. The program is written specifically around Careers Industry Council of Australia (CICA) designated career development competencies and specialisations such as counselling and vocational assessment. Endorsed by CICA, the program is recognised by professional associations such as CDAA, CEAV and state education bodies including DEECD and NSW DEC. Upon completion, you will be able to pursue postgraduate studies at Masters level. For further information and to apply, visit the website at
http://www.rmit.edu.au/careereducation
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CAA Website Update The CAA Website – The Features and What’s New! month preceding the event. You can use this to generate your own newsletters for students and parents if you We launched our new website in August last year and wish. You can also print off the online calendar, which feedback so far has been wonderful! Here’s some of the includes full event information such as date, location, cost, target group, contact names and details and much things you can do and see at the CAA website: more. You can also elect to “Follow All Events” and you will receive a fortnightly reminder about all events in the Events Calendar Over 65 institutions and private colleges have entered calendar. their own event information such as: The Institutions who have uploaded their event information for students and Careers Advisers are: • Information days and seminars; • Open days; o Academy of Interactive Entertainment (AIE) • Seminars for prospective students; o Actors College of Theatre and Television • Career Expos & Careers Markets; o AIT • Show Case Days; o Alphacrucis College • Workshops for Students; • Workshops for Careers Advisers including o Antipodeans o APM College of Business & Communication Professional Development Seminars; • Cut off dates and important deadlines such as o Australasian College of Natural Therapies scholarship close dates, application close dates o Australian Apprenticeships & Traineeships Information Service and UAC close dates. o Australian Careers Business College Events and cut off dates have a “Follow Me” feature o Australian Catholic University which allows you to elect to “follow” a particular event o Australian College of Applied Psychology or cut off date and you will then receive a fortnightly o Australian Film, Television & Radio School email reminder about all events you have followed, in the o Australian Institute of Architects o Australian Institute of Personal Trainers o Australian Maritime College o Australian National College of Beauty o Australian National University o Bedford College o Blue Mountains International Hotel Management School o Bond University o Campion College o Canberra Institute of Technology o CareerSearch o Career Voyage o CATC Design School
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o Charles Sturt University o DEEWR o Elizabeth Bence School of Fashion o Endeavour College of Natural Health o GapBreak o Institute of Chartered Accountants o Institute of Family Practice o International College of Management o Karl von Busse Institute of Design Ulladulla o Kenvale College o Le Cordon Bleu o Macquarie University o MEGT o MIT o NIDA - National Institute of Dramatic Art o Raffles College o Skillex o St Patricks Institute of Education o TAFE NSW Institutes o TAFE Northern Sydney Institute o TAFE South Western Institute o TAFE Sydney Institute o TAFE Western Institute o Teach NSW o The Hills College o The Hotel School Sydney o UAC o University of Canberra o University of Newcastle o University of Notre Dame o University of Sydney o University of Tasmania o University of Wollongong o UNSW o UTS o UTS InSearch o UWS o Wesley Institute o Whitehouse Institute of Design o William Blue College
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*NEW* CAA Networks – Find your network contact in our new page which contains information about the CAA Networks and their network meetings. Job Corner - Careers Advisers in search of employment are able to list their details in the job corner, and schools and institutions are also able to advertise positions for Careers Advisers. Online Conference Registration and Membership Renewal - Register for Conference or renew Membership online. If you are logged in, you don’t need to provide any details, just follow the prompts and it’s all done for you! Online Payments for Membership and Conference Make payments for Conference or Membership online by credit card. The usual cheque and EFT methods are still available and you can print an invoice online for these payments. Membership Certificates - Print your own personalised membership certificate online. Discussion Forum - Create your own topics for discussion, or contribute to hot topics of the CAA executive and other members.
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Conference Material - Download the presentations from E-News - Download or view all of the e-newsletters for our 2011 Conference. the current calendar year. Resources - Our resource centre stores all the latest Prospects - Download or view the current and previous careers resources. versions of CAA’s journal, Prospects. Professional Development Log - Record your professional Executive Committee Meetings - Find out about what’s development activities in our new activity log which happening at the CAA Executive Committee Meetings automatically calculates your points for you! by viewing out meeting summaries and the minutes of the meetings. You can also submit agenda items for inclusion in Executive Committee Meetings. CAA Awards - View the criteria and rationale for each of the CAA Awards including the Careers Adviser of the Year, the Hilary Bolin Award and the Margaret Gambley Medal. Download application forms and also see the current award recipients.
Check it out!
www.caa.nsw.edu.au
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CAA Conference 2011 - Liverpool Catholic Club Our Annual Conference was held on 18 & 19 November 2011 at Liverpool Catholic Club. The theme of the Conference was “The Great Divide - City and Country� and was all about Agriculture. We heard from Professor Gail Whitford (Pro-Vice Chancellor at Macquarie University), Year of the Farmer, Paul Wade (former Socceroo Captain) and Darren Flannagan (Hero of the Beconsfield Mine Disaster) to name a few. On the next few pages, you will find some of the material which was presented by our guest speakers at the Conference.
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Careers Adviser of the Year 2011 From the many nominations received for Careers Adviser of the Year 2011, four finalists were selected. A précis of the comments of the Principal’s of each of the four finalists are shown below. The selection panel consisted of Mick Lee, Careers Adviser at Hunter River High School, Brett Collimore, Careers Adviser at Bede Polding College, Jan Grace, Business Co-ordinator TVET Western Sydney Institute of TAFE, and Jeff Griffiths, Careers Adviser Erskine Park High School and CAA Awards and Membership officer. The panel found all the nominations were of a high quality. It is wonderful to see so many good things happening in Careers around the State, and the commitment and dedication of Careers Advisers. We had great difficulty in separating the four finalists, so each of the four finalists Principals’ were contacted in an effort to separate a winner!
In previous years, the winner of Careers Adviser of the Year received a $500 book voucher from Borders Books. This year, the CAA executive have increased the prizes and awarded the winner a cheque for $1000, and the other finalist’s cheques for $250 each. I encourage Careers Advisers to talk to their Principals about nominations for this years’ Careers Adviser of the Year. Remember, Principals can update and resubmit previous nominations. You have to be in it to win it! You can download a 2012 Careers Adviser of the Year nomination form at our website from the “Careers Adviser Awards” section in the Members Area. You will need to log in first to access this section.
After much deliberation, the winner of Careers Adviser of the year 2011 was declared as Maria Chubb, Careers Adviser, St Dominic’s College Kingswood. Congratulations to Maria!
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Careers Adviser of the Year Finalists 2011 A PRECIS OF PRINCIPAL’S COMMENTS TONY BORG
MARIA CHUBB
Mr Borg has an intimate knowledge of students past and present. He develops strong relationships with students at classroom level and builds throughout the students time at school, and beyond.
Maria establishes an effective rapport with students that allows her to gain the confidence of students, parents, and the school community. She is well respected and highly regarded within our school community. She is recognised by peers and our executive for the huge amount of effort she puts in for our students and her leadership of Career Education.
Mr Borg has an expert and comprehensive knowledge of all areas relating to Careers Education. He is also an engaging classroom practitioner who painstakingly prepares lessons. He is a tireless innovator, always looking to improve and refine already outstanding programs. Mr Borg has developed an amazing level of education and industry wide contacts that he utilises in all facets of his programs. He has co-published articles with Professor Jim Bright and Robert Pryor in academic journals followed by a PhD full scholarship. The diversity of the Careers program prepares students well for all post-school opportunities.
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Maria provides professional development to all staff and co-ordinators in area of ATAR, HSC, SC policies and procedures to ensure all students are well informed in making decisions. Maria has been closely involved with the running of the Nepean Careers Market for many years, including presenting seminars to students, co-ordinating the market, and other supervisory roles. She is also a key member of the Nepean Careers Forum, local Schools Industry Partnership, and Nepean apprenticeship expo. She assists other local schools with their Careers program, including subject selection interviews and information days. She has been an effective mentor to new Careers Advisers.
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PHIL WILLIAMSON
ARTHUR ZIGAS
Phil has developed and implemented an innovative Arthur had a vision to transform Careers at the school… careers program that maximizes input from the strong the school now has a Careers hub that is inviting and can be accessed many hours of the day. partnerships he has developed. Willingness to explore and implement contemporary career theory and vocational practice into delivery of Career Education lessons and programs. His Careers lessons and Vocational programs result in students becoming autonomous learners.
Expert in Careers information. Very approachable demeanour – students feel comfortable to talk to him about their career related interests.
Arthur goes to extreme lengths to ensure students are successful in their transition from school to work. He also Phil has gained the support for his Career programs makes himself available after hours to assist students. through his demonstrated commitment to students’ welfare, contagious enthusiasm for his job, and The Careers program educates staff and parents on how administrative efficiency. There are always staff best to support students during their career planning. members willing to participate in Career based activities Arthur constantly monitors, reviews and evaluates Phil has developed strong ties with local employers Careers information keeping it up to date and relevant. and industry and regularly attends industry forums and Arthur is convenor of St George District and uses his committee meetings. He has been a co-ordinator of the networks to channel knowledge and information to Central Coast Careers Expo for five years. He created assist students in and beyond his school. and developed the Regional Career and Transition Excellence Student of the Year Award.
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HILARY BOLIN AWARD 2011
2011 MARGARET GAMBLEY AWARD RECIPIENTS
The Hilary Bolin Award for 2011 was awarded to Cathy The 2011 recipients of the inaugural Margaret Gambley Medal were Bill Goldie, Julie Tocchini, Jean Turnbull Browne. and Brian Freney. All have been major contributors Cathy is described by her colleagues as a most amazing to career education throughout their long careers as person, utterly selfless and with an enormous capacity careers advisers. for hard work. She is always putting the interests of others before herself and is a person of absolute sincerity. Her personal integrity is beyond question. Cathy has a passion for making a difference in the lives of other people and is always so thoughtful and caring of others. Prior to her work as Careers Adviser, Cathy was an English teacher. In 2002 she offered to assist a Careers Adviser colleague who was absent from her post on sick leave for a term. Cathy enjoyed the work so much that she decided to train as a Careers Adviser and then she looked for work. She shared a part time position at Killara High School initially, and then was appointed to a full time position at Ravenswood where she remained until she took sick leave in Term 2, 2010. At a time when the Northern Sydney Networks of the CAA had just been resurrected, Cathy took over as Chairperson. Until taking leave, she managed the network’s affairs and meetings with the highest degree of professionalism, skill, and when circumstances required it, sensitivity and diplomacy. Cathy is a very deserving recipient of the Hilary Bolin Award and we congratulate her for her tireless years of service to careers.
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One of our recipients, Bill Goldie shows us what it takes to receive the honour of this award. working with both the developers of this program and the CAs who wanted to learn how to use it. • Ditto the E-Me! Program. Early history..... • Entered teaching service in 1976 from UNE and • Organised Tertiary Information Day for Lismore area for over 20 years! posted to Punchbowl Boys High. Transferred to Albury High and then Murray High as “Social Science” teacher (oldies please tell new teachers At School ... • At School involved with Aboriginal Career programs that is “old speak” for “HSIE”) such as Deadly Days, Aboriginal School based • Retrained as a Careers Adviser mid 80’s with Karen traineeships and Tafe taster programs. Pisk and Janet Kossey’s intake. • Returned to Murray High in Lavington (Albury) as • Also involved in Year 10 TVET taster programs, tafe programs for Disabilities students etc careers adviser. • Transferred to Lismore High School as careers • Manage TVET program and School based trainee ship programs in senior school. Adviser in 1989 • Looked after Distance Education within the school • Did usual stuff eg Uni entrance info, subject Accomplishments … selection info,work experience, work exp for at risk • Member of CAA entire working life as a CA (since students, career lessons , interviews, reports etc 1985) that make up the bulk of our working days …. • Started Summerland Careers Association in 1989 in Lismore. Great way of getting together, sharing resources, sharing jobs eg tertiary days, Educational philosophy …. A CA tries to give students the best information and professional and personal support etc • Remained President of Summerland CA until skills with which to make sensible and rational career decisions. To do this the CA must liaise with other people retirement. • Past president of North Coast branch of CAA (about and other groups eg Tafe, Employer groups , Universities etc and other Careers Advisers. a decade) • Following course on web page design (early 90s), I have willingly shared work and ideas with others and posted all Work Studies notes etc on inteernet for have been heavily involved in local and state associations LHS and other schools to use. Estimated that over because that is the way we, as Careers Advisers, can 50 school using it statewide at one stage. best do our jobs. • Following closure of Geocities site, put entire work studies, work education etc courses on computer The CAA and our Local Associations are our “staff disk. Students at LHS used disk in studies. Again, rooms”. They are where we meet similar people with copies of disk mailed to anyone (state, Catholic or similar jobs. People who understand what a CA does private) who wanted it. Lost count of how many and what pressures they are under. disks have been mailed out. All work sent out free. • Worked with author in WA to Produce Work They are places where CA can pool resources... some Education book. Not “straight to remainder bin” but people are better at some things than others and can therefore help other CA not “blessed” with the same fairly close! • Became Myfuture master and absolutely loved skill set. W. GOLDIE CAREERS ADVISING HISTORY
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Graeme MacKenzie Memorial Address , CAA Annual Conference 2011 – Friday 18th November 2011
‘Beyond the Divide – Building Aspirations, Capabilities and pathways for First in Family Students’ Chairperson: Sue Sundstrom, President CAA
So today I want to speak to a couple of issues in a relatively short amount of time. First of all I really want Speaker: Prof Gail Whiteford, Pro-Vice-Chancellor – to talk to you about why higher education matters, why it’s important, and why might our Federal government be Social Inclusion, Macquarie University investing so heavily in it at this current time. Sue Sundstrom: Our Graeme MacKenzie Memorial Address today is ‘Beyond the Divide - Building I want to give you a bit of a snapshot of what Aspirations, Capabilities and pathways for First in participation in higher education currently looks like in Family Students’. And I’d like to welcome Professor Australia. Some of the figures you may be familiar with, Gail Whiteford, Pro-Vice-Chancellor – Social Inclusion, some might startle you. Have a bit of a look at some of the barriers to higher education that many young people Macquarie University. experience. Many of you will see them and work with Gail Whiteford: I’d like to start by acknowledging the them on a daily basis, but let’s just consider what they traditional custodians of the land, the Durrag and pay might be again. my respects to elders past and present. And extend that respect to any indigenous members that we have here And finally, it’s all very well to address barriers, but let’s discuss how we might move forward, and in particular today. I want to present to you some of the innovations that Given that I’m giving the Graeme MacKenzie Memorial are happening not just in the sector but that we’re address today, I’d also like to acknowledge Graeme engaging in at Macquarie University to move us forward Mackenzie. I found out that he was a leading light in a widening participation agenda. I’d have to say for CAA, and that in 1976 he was crucial in bringing it’s actually a really exciting moment to be in higher about the formation of this body and establishing education. it. I understand that he was very passionate and very committed to having you all represented nationally. So I got an opportunity to speak to a group of prospective it’s an honour for me to be here today and giving the Indigenous students yesterday at Macquarie University, we had 35 young indigenous people who had arrived to Graeme MacKenzie Memorial address. go through an entry pathway program with us. But the Now, I’d just like to start by saying I’m delighted to be first one in terms of why you’d do higher education is invited to be here today, because it seems to me that in that it seems from the research that it’s worth about a the challenges that we face in an agenda of widening million to a million and a half dollars in a person’s life, participation, the more that we collaborate the better, and that’s controlling all variables. So often, given that and certainly the more the collaboration between people from lower socio-economic backgrounds are most universities, schools, and Careers Advisors the better. debt adverse, this is an important fact to put in front of
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them, that yes it is an investment, yes you will go into debt going into higher education. It’s still not a full fee compared to some countries like America where you’ll end up in massive debt at the end of a higher education degree, but it is still a debt. But the net result is worth more than a million dollars in someone’s lifetime. And that financial gain is not just for the individual. What we do know from the data gathered, particularly in European countries through OECD research is that those benefits flow on to whole communities, it’s not just about the individual financial gain of a million to a million and a half dollars. We know that alongside that a professional qualification leads to higher standards of housing, better health status, and a raising of whole communities that have been disadvantaged. The other interesting bit of research that’s just come out also through a very recent OECD study has been that participation in higher education seems also to be linked to higher levels of wellbeing. We also know that if there’s a relationship between higher education attainment and wellbeing, then there’s an inverse relationship in terms of lower levels of educational attainment. So it does seem here, and I’m referring to the same OECD study, that lower levels of education seem to be associated with lower levels of life satisfaction. Now I’d say that’s probably a pretty complex one. But you can begin to see the causal relationships here. So countries like Portugal, Spain, Slovenia, Hungary have particularly large gaps in life satisfaction between people with and without tertiary educations.
between life satisfaction and education, but of course what we’re really looking at there is the impact of that education on income and its relationship to health status and overall subjective wellbeing. So in summary, what does this tell us? Education may contribute to subjective wellbeing primarily via its impact on other outcomes. So my point here is that doing a professional qualification, participating in higher education, yes it will increase your income, a million to a million and a half across a life course, but really there are all sorts of other impacts that are really important. Similarly, and again I’m drawing from the same study, quite fascinating stuff, is that elderly, poor and less educated people tend to have weaker networks of social support in comparison with other populations. Trust in others generally rises with people’s education, age and income, but that tapers off at the high end and then age becomes more problematic. The poor, the less educated and young tend to participate less in political life, and we know this is a very big issue for governments and politicians alike, is how do we engage those people who are very disengaged? And of course the response seems to be to use a lot of social media, so that’s why our politicians are all tweeting madly away.
Interestingly trust in judicial systems and government seems to increase also with higher education. I don’t know what you feel about this, but trust in governments and higher education, I think it probably gives us more of a critical perspective. Okay, so you can see the net In contrast, a lot of the Scandinavian countries, and I’d effects of a higher education are really far reaching. have to say I spent six months in Sweden a couple of years ago, and they have a participation rate of people So what’s happening in Australia? The last 10 years from low income backgrounds of 52%, which is pretty have actually been really static. We haven’t had staggering, and I’ll go on to compare that to our scenario growth in representation of people from disadvantaged later on. But the inverse is true then in countries where backgrounds in higher education, it’s remained very there aren’t these gaps between people who do and steady at around somewhere between 15-16%. It seems we’ve lost ground, comparatively, and in the don’t participate in higher education. OECD league tables we’ve slipped. So we’ve gone down So the point here is that there is a direct relationship a couple of places, particularly when we look at the 25
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to 34 year old age bracket in terms of enrolling in higher Improving access and equity in higher education for all these groups is a difficult task. We know that, and that’s education and completing a degree. why we’re trying to deal with it. Let’s have a look. Now So 29% of our 25 to 34 year olds have degree level what’s interesting about this table, and it is borne out qualifications, but in other OECD countries targets of up in a piece of really interesting research done in Victoria to 50% have already been set. And as I said, in Sweden recently, is that NESB group, or what I would probably they’re now past that at 52. In the UK, after a decade of call CULD, Culturally Linguistically Diverse Backgrounds, social inclusion measures in higher education they’ve hit is that there does seem to be a differential in family the 50% mark as well. And as Denise Bradley pointed investment in higher education, and family valuing of out in her very key Bradley Review a couple of years ago, higher education, particularly for migrant families. So we need to take some urgent measures to address this. you see there as a participation rate against population And I’ll be telling you about some of what’s happening in representation they’re actually doing very well. the sector in order to do exactly that. Students with disabilities I would have to say we have This is a group of young students we’ve been working a long way to go in higher education. We make sure with in McLean. Anyone from that area, northern New that we address this at the moment, you don’t, about South Wales? Where we’ve been working with Elders 50% of what we should be seeing in higher education. to Indigenise the curriculum and also to take students, And probably all Universities are struggling with the fact Indigenous and non-Indigenous students, on to Country that we have had, you know, quite a sharp rise in our with Elders. And I’d have to say that it’s been a fabulous numbers of students with disabilities at Universities, and program. We’ve been involved for six years now, and I think we were caught a little unprepared, particularly in over that time there’s been 100% increase in Year 10 to terms of accessibility and not just physical accessibility, Year 12 completions of Indigenous students. Somehow although some of us, we have old buildings we’ve had with that cultural input, with our staff being involved in to move to make sure they’re accessible, but it’s about Science enrichment, we have a bush medicines project accessibility of our data platforms as well, for students running as well, it’s become cool to be Indigenous and for example who have visual impairment. For students be engaged in Indigenous knowledge production. So who are hearing impaired we’ve had to also move you can see the impacts you can have over time. Great quickly on the technology. And I’m very proud of the fact that at Macquarie we’ve recently introduced a live project. captioning trial, so that when you’re sitting in a lecture, So Australia has slipped behind internationally, we’re up come the live captions as the lecturer is talking. Of down from where we were previously in terms of interest, the lecturers don’t always seem to like that, to representation of disadvantaged people in higher see every word that they’ve said appear on screen. But education. And it’s the disadvantaged who have become you can imagine the difference that would make to a more disadvantaged in that scenario. People from lower student with a hearing impairment. socio-economic backgrounds, those from regional and remote Australia. Who’s from rural, regional, remote Rural, regional representation is also below what it Australia in the audience? Okay. I’m going to show should be, and this doesn’t show on this table because you the figures in a minute to show that in fact the I’ve simplified it, but that’s actually gone backwards. That representation of students from rural Australia have 2007 figure is worse than it was. So what’s happening there? Why has that occurred? For someone like me slipped behind. who used to work at Charles Sturt University, a regional
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university, I would be asking what does that tell us? Low SES, as I’ve said, the representation has been around 15% and has been for about a decade, and that’s why we’ve been given the job of being prompted to do a better job there, when really it should be a 25% proportionality. And finally, Indigenous representation is about half of what it should be as well. There are some real challenges there. I’m sure these are things you all well and truly know. In her review, Bradley pointed out that it wasn’t just a matter of saying well, look, we want more of these students from these backgrounds in higher education, it just doesn’t happen that way, because there are significant barriers that students face. Of course financial barriers are probably the biggest. For many families, that commitment is a real stretch. But as well as the barriers of access, if you’re coming from Broken Hill, Brewarrina, places that are remote, that’s a real barrier physically. But there are other softer barriers that are a little harder to tackle. And sometimes the barriers are actually attitudinal. Now, I don’t know if you see this in your work, but certainly from having lived and worked in smaller places, there can be a sense for families, sometimes teachers, around, you know, do you really want to go and do that, is this the right thing for you, why would you, and isn’t that really getting ahead of yourself? And I have spoken with students who said that actually their families and friends worked against them in their desire to go on and participate in higher education, to go to University in another town, they were almost kind of drawn back into their community with a ‘why would you aspire to that?’. So there’s a lot in there about values, attitudes, and aspirations to higher education that are a little harder to tackle.
a remote location, if you’ve come from an Indigenous community, and you still have many community demands back there, you’re going to need greater levels of support just to make it through every week at university. One of the things I do is sit on our financial hardship committee at the University, and I’ve been staggered by the levels of real poverty, and some of the extreme circumstances students live in. I’ve had people who have been living on two minute noodles for a month and a half. People who can’t afford to buy their prescription medication for things like serious heart conditions. One young woman who ended up living in a women’s refuge because she’d been a victim of domestic violence still managed to make it to University every day, but ended up without enough money to catch the train. So these are issues we might not have seen 20 years ago, but they’re very real. So we need to make sure that we have those supports in place, because it’s one thing to get disadvantaged students in the door, but it’s really quite another to make sure that they’re supported to stay. We know that disadvantaged students are most at risk of dropping out in the first year, so we particularly need to pay attention to supports in that first year, and I’ll tell you some more about things that we’re doing at Macquarie down the track. So things like, it’s not just academic support, but mentoring and availability of counselling and I would say definitely financial services are really important. And this is Troy, this is one of our cadets who came in through an Indigenous access program who now, having gone through an education, qualification at Macquarie University, is now working in our division of IT. He’s a great example of overcoming some of those barriers.
Okay, but instead of me talking about the barriers and experience, let’s listen to the voice of some very remote students who’ve come to Macquarie University and UTS When students from disadvantaged backgrounds get and let them tell you about their experience of barriers to higher education, we do know that they do tend to and opportunities. be higher support service users. And there’s no rocket science in why that might be. If you’re coming from a Female from soundtrack: In Sydney I am hoping to very disadvantaged background, if you’ve come from experience what it is like to study at a University. I
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would like to do Nursing as a career, so I am hoping this But as you can see, I’m hoping that there was a change experience will help me decide whether I would still like in perception of University as a place that I might go to. And what’s really important there is that sense of to do Nursing in the future. possibility in which these young people go ‘that might be Male from soundtrack: In Sydney I’m hoping to me’ in interacting with our students on campus, seeing experience what uni life is like and whether the career I the place they go ‘I can imagine myself here’. Now, in a way it doesn’t really matter if they come to Macquarie want to do is right for me. University or not. We’d like them to of course. But the Female from soundtrack: I hope to study Architecture point is it now becomes a possibility in their aspirational terrain, and this is what this stuff is all about, and small and Anthropology. things like going to dinner at a Chinese restaurant, so Female from soundtrack: We had so much fun in you can see for young people from rural and remote Sydney and this is an experience we’ll never forget. places this can be a transformative experience. We’d like to thank the Country Education Foundation for organising this wonderful event. It helped us confirm Okay, so we know it’s important, we are trying to our career path on to being successful Architects and address it through programs such as what you’ve seen, Journalists. We have made so many friends, and I’d give and we do get a sense of what the barriers might be a huge recommendation to anyone who wants to try this and what some of the issues are. But let’s talk about the responses to widening participation. First of all, as experience. Thank you. I said, it’s a good time for us in higher education. I kind Female from soundtrack: Forensics at UTS was of worry about what might happen with the change of really good though, that was really interesting. And the government and what might happen to funding, but for now we’ve had access to what’s called HEPPP funding, Psychology at Macquarie was really good as well. Higher Education Participation and Partnership Program. Gail Whiteford: Let me tell you a little bit about that. And that was when Julia Gillard was actually Minister That was made and edited by those students. We of Education. She made $433 million available over four worked in collaboration on that project with Country years for exactly the sorts of projects where we might Education Foundation as you heard. But also Apple go out and reach disadvantaged students, in conjunction was a sponsor, and Apple were incredibly generous, with other stakeholder groups. It seems like a lot, but if and all those students got an iPod, they got taken to the you divide that between our 40 universities, it actually Apple centre in the heart of Sydney in George Street, doesn’t go quite as far as you might think. But it still and the Apple staff were amazing. When they walked allowed us to roll out a series of initiatives. in the Apple staff all stood up and clapped for these young people. Now, you can imagine if you’ve just come Now, having told you that in other countries targets from Condobolin and arrived in Sydney and gone to the of low SES participation run at around 50% and have Apple store, what that would feel like, so, they also been achieved, our target seems quite low. We’ve been learnt skills on how to pull together these videos, and given a target of 20% by 2020. And I think the reasoning then they produced a co-edited one. So we were quite behind this is because that seems achievable. However keen that this experience wasn’t just about coming and it’s a kind of complex one, because not every University seeing how fabulous Macquarie and UTS was, but that shares the same demographic context. As you know, they would also scaffold some skills development onto UWS probably already have nearly double that, already, relative to location. ANU will never, it has no low SES it.
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postcodes because of its location, so has probably the most under-represented group of low SES of all. Macquarie University in the first analysis didn’t look so good either. Now, that’s led to a change in the metric we use to measure low SES access. So in the past, this was all done on postcodes, as I’ve said. Postcodes are kind of homogenised. Not everybody that lives in a postcode has the same socio-economic status. So for us at Macquarie, north shore looks very affluent by postcode, but actually there’s some real entrenched pockets of disadvantaged. We have some refugee communities, we have affordable housing programs. So what this has led to overall is the development of a new metric. People probably know about this. DEEWR is working on a new metric which will take into account more factors that tell us about people’s background, and the mix in the new metric looks like it will include Centrelink data. Now, we won’t have that at Universities, but that will be worked on by DEEWR in terms of the students that we have who come from families who’ve had a background of being Centrelink beneficiaries. But also the really important one is parental educational attainment. We know there’s a relationship to people who are first in family to higher education versus those who come from backgrounds where their parents have degrees. And if you’re in Tasmania, the University of Tasmania, most of Tasmania has low SES postcodes, so you can see the whole postcode metric became very problematic for us.
has been massive. Across Australia right now, every University is engaged in more activity than I could begin to describe to you, and a lot of it is fabulous, a lot of it is innovative. I worry a little bit about whether or not we’re getting the outcomes that we want, and whether we’re generating the evidence as to the effectiveness of our programs. But for now, there’s a lot happening.
That’s one of our Indigenous graduates from Law who came through on an Access programme. He completed Law, and what he’s wearing is his possum skin cloak that he made by hand out of 48 smelly possum skins from New Zealand, and into it he burnt the pattern of the Lachlan River, and that, he’s a Wiradjuri young man, represented the cloak that was given to Governor Macquarie when he first crossed the Lachlan River into Macquarie, into Wiradjuri territory. So very proud moment for him at graduation this year.
This represents something really significant and a real leap forward, in that Universities who are normally competing to get those first preferences in can say you know what, for a higher purpose, let’s join forces. It’s really fabulous to be part of this group, and we have some initiatives you’ll be hearing about in your schools coming along, one particularly focussed on parents.
One thing that is really exciting is I imagine you all think the Universities are pretty competitive. Do you think we’re competitive? Do you think we compete for places? Yes we do. You can probably see it from the stands outside. But you know what, when it comes to widening participation, actually Universities have agreed that we can work, if we work together and raise the aspirations of young disadvantaged people maybe everybody benefits. So the agreement is that up to Year 10 we all work together and it doesn’t matter, we’re not targeting specific Universities in this agenda, we’re just getting young people to think about the possibility. And I’d like to speak to an initiative in Sydney I’m very proud of. And this is the Sydney widening participation in higher education forum. All the metropolitan Universities here decided to get together, work together, with schools, collaborate, share knowledge, share skills, in order to address students from Year 7 onward, and in fact there’s some primary school initiatives going at the moment, but I don’t really have time to talk about them.
I’m going to talk a little bit now about how we’re responding at institutional level, and in particular what’s in my portfolio of social inclusion. Outreach. You So in the sector, what are we doing? The scope and probably see Outreach programs from Universities in scale of activity around this $433 million availability your schools. We’ve had anecdotal evidence that some
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year in particular I gave out scholarships to people like an older gentleman from Somalia who’d been through two refugee camps to get to Australia who’s studying Journalism at Macquarie, and the other one was to a young man who came to us from Burma whose family had been connected to Aung San Suu Kyi over there, and Scholarships are really important. If the biggest hurdle who had to flee, and he’s now studying IT at Macquarie. for people from low socio-economic backgrounds is What a great part of a job. financial, we need to make sure that we have the scholarships there, and they’re increasing in number We’re also working in partnership with other every year. If you’re disadvantaged, if you don’t have organisations, and this is really important to get that cothe social and cultural capital that will help you get to investment. We have the Cochlear Facility on campus University, transitioning is really important, and we’re with us at Macquarie. They’re working with us to provide acknowledging that by investing a lot in supporting scholarships for hearing impaired students, very exciting people to make that transition, because there’s still a stuff. As I said, transitioning with a first year focus. All bit of a gap between what happens in Year 12 and what our students, as of next year, who arrive in that terrifying happens in first year University. And if you arrive at a first week will get their own personal mentor who’s been University like Macquarie University, we have 38,000 matched to them. And we know that mentoring makes a students. Can you imagine arriving day one on campus big difference in that first year. We also are addressing and going ‘wow, this is overwhelming’. We know that, first year assessment strategies. In the past I think it’s and we need to scaffold a lot of supports around that been a bit of a case of where some staff felt like it’s sink or swim in first year, we’re going to make those first transition and in the first year experience. year students know how to do an assignment. But really And finally we have an overarching initiative called without telling them how to go about doing it. So we’re PACE, Participation And Community Engagement, and changing our first year assessment approaches for that I’ll talk a little bit about that specifically as well. This reason. is a picture of our students joining forces with staff and students in Broken Hill, and I’ll pick up the story behind Outreach, as I said, we’ve been pulling together a more coordinated strategy targeting communities including that later. Indigenous communities, rural communities, and One of the feedback sheets I got from this program these are more slides from Broken Hill and low SES out of interest, we got the students to do some soil communities. Now, just to give you an idea, at the sampling as part of a Science enrichment program. I bottom, the guy with the hat and the groovy sunglasses read the evaluations yesterday, and three of the students actually is one of the world’s leading scientists in wrote under the question ‘what do you like about this Environmental Science, and in particular in lead analysis. program?’, they wrote ‘I really like digging in the dirt’. You’ve got some high school students from Broken Hill accessing one of the world’s leading scientist out in the Great. You never know what’s going to reach people. field, digging dirt, analysing the soil for lead content. Okay, very quickly then, scholarships, we’ve gone heavily What a great experience and what a great opportunity down the equity scholarship focus at Macquarie, and that is. And again, they’ve now become excited about we’ve increased our offerings to Indigenous students, Science in a way they might not have before. mature age students, rural and refugee students, and this schools have, when University staff have called up and said are you interested in a robotics workshop, schools saying you know what, we’ve got three or four other Universities visiting this week, no thanks. So it might be that we need some coordination.
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One of the biggest programs we’ve embarked on is refugee mentoring. As you know, some of the schools in this area in western Sydney have up to 40% of their student population from refugee backgrounds. Now, that’s a big ask, and that’s a big demand on a school. We’ve acknowledged that in partnership with DEC, and we’re working with five schools in western Sydney to undertake what we’re calling refugee mentoring. And again, let’s hear from the students, the mentors and the mentees. Male from soundtrack: My name is Hamid Ali and I am from Evans High School. Today we visit Macquarie University and from what I liked today was seeing the African drumming and how they invited everyone to dance with them. Male from soundtrack: My excursion today to Macquarie University was really fantastic, and I have seen many areas here. And now actually we are sitting all together having our lunch. I guess that was the most interesting thing for me, because I wasn’t expecting that.
and as I said we’re getting the evaluative data in on that one. It’s my favourite project at the moment. Okay, and finally, and very quickly, I want to talk to you about our biggest initiative that pulls all these threads together, and that’s in our new degree. We have three compulsory units in the Macquarie degree program. People, Planet, Participation. I don’t have a lot of time to tell you about these, but I would claim that it is the most advanced or differentiated degree right now in Australia for this reason. In the People units, students have to learn about the social world. Now, if you’re someone who’s come from a science background and you’re doing a Biology degree, that’s a different kind of learning for you that you may not have been exposed to in your degree ordinarily. Similarly, Planet units, people have to learn about the Environment, Ecology and the physical world. If you’re someone who was coming from an Arts programme that would be different as well. But where we pull it all together is in the final unit, which is called Participation, and this is a type of service learning, where our students are out in real places working with organisations and serving them as a form of learning.
Male from soundtrack: My name is Sumba, I’m from Blacktown Boys High School. I liked the library, the swimming pool and the gym, and I liked also the computer labs. Yes, that’s all I like about this place.
So in a nutshell, our students develop interpersonal and social capabilities as well as enhancing their disciplinary learning in their degree program. We like to think they’re getting applied for, they’re getting ready for real world, although I like to think University’s a real world too, but Gail Whiteford: Okay, again, you can imagine for some applied contexts. of those students, and amongst them there were a couple of young men who had been child soldiers back in Partners is where the Outreach comes together now. Sierra Leone. You can imagine what it might be like to be We’re working through this PACE initiative with schools, part of a program where someone like yourself, because with community organisations, in for example the central the students that volunteered from Macquarie to be desert. We’re working to help their needs by bringing our mentors, many of them were from refugee backgrounds students with it, and again raising aspirations towards themselves. Can you imagine the difference that might higher education. make, and your feelings about going on to University? Can you imagine what it’s like to actually be on campus Finally, what it does for everyone, it’s about a mutual and think ‘hey, this might be somewhere where I might benefit, the mutuality of learning. We would hope that go as well’. It’s a program that will continue for several this speaks to ultimately the transformative potential years. We feel that it’s having some significant impacts, of higher education, when we truly engage with communities.
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So I’m just going to sum up now, because we’re getting towards being out of time. First of all, higher education is important, it does change people’s lives. But it’s not a level playing field in terms of who gets to access higher education and who participates in it. In order to change this scenario, it is actually a long journey, and as the African proverb goes, if you want to go fast, you go alone, if you want to go far you go together. We acknowledge that along with teachers, parents and schools, that Careers Advisors are a really crucial part of this journey. We look forward to joining with you in this journey with the same passion, with the same commitment that Graeme MacKenzie had all those years ago, and creating the change that we need to see now and into the future. Thanks very much.
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Sue Sundstrom: I’d like to thank Gail for that presentation. Interesting, listening to her and I started to make some notes to talk about at the end, but I ran out of space on my page. When she talked about that level of support needed to succeed, academic, mentoring and counselling, and there’s Careers Advisors with our students most at risk, the terms that keep coming up in our daily lives, we know how much she means when she talks about that level of support for these students. I don’t know about you, but I look forward to hearing about how effective these programs are in the future, and what the outcomes are for our students, especially those of us who have low socio-economic backgrounds, disadvantaging barriers for refugees etc in our schools. So I thank Gail for bringing all that information to us, and we look forward to working with the universities. Isn’t it great to see that the Universities are working together rather than competing, and they’re working with parents and students even at the primary school level.
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Edited transcript and summary from the CAA Annual Conference 2011
‘Careers in the Agriculture Value Chain: Endless Opportunities’ Presenter: Geoff Bell, Managing Director, The Year of the Farmer You have a connection with farming if you: • Eat food • Drink milk • Wear leather shoes or a woolly jumper or carry a leather handbag • Dry yourself with a towel • Use paper • Own furniture made from pine • Wear pearls • Use tea tree oil • Buy flowers • Have a turf lawn
shortfall. I know that no only are people like the Primary Industry and Education Foundation but also people like the Australian Council of Deans of Agriculture are really concerned about that.
If we don’t address this now, what happens in ten years when the farmers are an average age of 65? Who’s going to grow the food or are we going to have to import it, and if we are going to have to import it who overseas is going to grow the food? Who’s going to sell it to us if there’s this massive population going? So we really do need to address this issue now and I think that goes to the very heart, I know I said before that Year of the Farmer is a celebration and we’re looking at the positives and so on, but the hard edge of the Year of the Farmer is we have to address the issues as a nation now. Everyone has a role Agriculture is a 21st Century growth industry. With to play some way or another in it and I guess you people Global population growth – 7 billion now and estimated here have probably a bigger role to play than most. to be 9.3 billion in 2050, globally we need to increase our food production by 70 percent over the next forty We have this problem partly because agriculture has years. Currently the growth rate’s about 2.8 percent not told its story all that well. There is the stereotyped so we’re doing okay, per year that is, year on year, but image of farming – the typical farmer is overwhelming there’s a real need for us to find ways to, not just us but seen as: the whole world, to increase it. Now Australia can play a pretty big role in that. We have a lot of land that’s – male usable providing you can get water to it and providing of – born in Australia course that you can have people to farm it, the average – with a very basic education of farmers is now 55. I can give you some more statistics – raised in the country on that that show there’s not massive numbers of people – and living in Qld! coming through either into that farming thing, per say. There is only about 800 Agricultural Science graduates Also, around 75% of people see challenges to working not to mention people going into other parts of the in Agribusiness as: Agribusiness value chain nationally, and that’s a big
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effects droughts, floods, locust plagues etc perceived high upfront financial investment challenging economically very hard work means living in areas with limited infrastructure & services
to be producing chemicals to treat animal pests etc., there are a whole range of different possibilities that are the people who sell that stuff, there are the people who transport it around etc. Each one of those little strands has quite a range of different careers that could potentially hang off it.
The stereotyped images mentioned above have come out of some fairly serious research as I mentioned that we’ve done and to make things even more complicated, people often mistakenly equate Agribusiness with farming – of course there’s far more to it than that! I suppose it’s understandable because farmers probably aren’t that good at portraying themselves as people who are involved in very serious businesses that are very complex. I was talking to Marie there a few minutes ago and she made the point that farming is a complex complicated thing and so the image that we’ve got is perhaps a little bit different to what the actuality of the thing is and then when you add all the bits that go to support it, you can see that the whole system is actually very complex as well.
There’s then the direct services that the farm and the farmers have, be it from scientific advice, the commercial goods and services that they require to run the farms. Someone’s got to produce all that. Someone’s got to sell it. Someone’s got to get it to the farm. Then there’s the point about rural communities and I mentioned earlier people are not wanting to go to rural communities because of lack of infrastructure and services and so on. They are equally important to the running of a viable Agriculture sector. It’s really important to have education, to have health services, to have retail shops, to have people able to do plumbing or electrical work, or be refrigeration mechanics, or whatever it happens to be. So there’s a whole range of jobs that are out there that are in rural areas, career paths in rural areas, that I think are really important and perhaps hopefully people might consider.
– – – – –
The$Agribusiness$Value$Chain$ $
You’ve then got a whole range of what I’ve called “output” services. So marketing and sales. You’ve Output$$ Services$ got Auctioneers. You’ve got Stock and Station Agents. Fibre$ The$ You’ve got people who have got to transport grains or Farmer$ Forestry$ crops or stock or whatever around, etc. etc. Then finally Direct$Spt$Services$ Others$ you’ve got all the outputs. The food we eat. Be it the food we produce ourselves or we go to a restaurant or we come to a club like this. This is actually part of the Agriculture value chain. That lunch we had is part of the Agriculture value chain. Then there is fibre obviously. The diagram above is pretty detailed. What it describes Forestry I’ve mentioned. Furniture and things like that in a fairly simple way I hope, is the various sort of strands again are all part of this. if you like of potential careers that exist around that idea of “the farmer”. To briefly go into it you’ve obviously got Then finally things like flowers and Teatree oil, leather inputs of all kinds and let me just select one. Let me say goods and so on are part of it as well. There is a whole Animal Health. Animal Health is a thing that obviously system that sits around these. The Australian farmthere are Veterinarians, there are people that are going related industries employ about 1.6 million people (17% $
Inputs$
People$ Land$ Water$ Plants$ Animals$ Animal$health$ Plant$health$ Soil$health$ IT$systems$ Communica=ons$ Vehicles$ Machinery$ Buildings$ Infrastructure$ R&D$ $ $ $
Outputs$
Local$Services$
Food$
Eg,$educa=on,$health$support,$ police$etc$+$nonHrural$retail$ and$nonHrural$trades$
H $Fresh$food$ H $Food$service$$ H $Processed$food$
$
Marke=ng$&$sales$ Transport$ Storage$&$handling$ Processing$ Export$services$ Wholesaling$ Retailing$
Scien=fic$advice,$gov’t$ services,$commercial$goods$&$ services,$tech$support$etc$
H$Clothing$ H $Carpets$etc$ H Furniture$ H $Housing$$
H Flowers$ H $Oils$ H $Leather$goods$ $
©$$Copyright$Australian$Year$of$the$Farmer$Limited$2011$
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of the total workforce) working in the Agribusiness value chain as we speak. 51% of these jobs are in the six Capital Cities. So it’s not as if we’re talking directly about farming per say, it’s all these other things that sit around it.
This would be the start I hope of the discussion because we would hope that you’re going to be able to help us or help the Agriculture sector by doing those two things. By explaining to students and parents I expect, because you no doubt have a lot of contact with parents as well, that it is much more than farming and encourage people to get into what is going to be the major growth industry for the Twenty-First century. Then we come to the point of encouraging city based people to look outwards rather than inwards when it comes to those jobs, so exploring those endless possibilities.
Agribusiness contributes $405 billion, or 27% of national GDP in Australia which is an indication of the size and scale of Agribusiness in Australia. Not just farming even though there are 136,000 farms. Around them there is a whole bunch of stuff that goes on that we don’t necessarily connect and it’s really important that I met with Lyn Camp a while back now in the lead up we do connect them. to this when she first asked if we might be part of it There are endless opportunities in Agribusiness. The and we were out at Macquarie Links near where she list below I got it out of Jobs Guide 2010 basically and lives. We were having a discussion and she pointed to obviously there are hundreds more possibilities in there, Campbelltown and I think mentioned St. Gregory’s and you’ve got this wide scope that people can be. They don’t she pointed the other way to Hurlstone Agricultural have to be a farmer. They can be a lot of other things College. Other schools in the area do not offer and providing that they think of themselves as part of Agricultural subjects, and their students do not come the Agriculture sector rather than think of themselves from Agricultural regions, so they do not have a basic as being a Woolies shop assistant or checkout operator knowledge of careers in the industry. She said that it’s or whatever it might be, there are so many opportunities people like those people at other schools in the area who and if I can ask you to take away anything today, it’s to perhaps can benefit from a bit of thinking about this type reflect on that. Those opportunities. How you get people of thing. The Ag College and the St. Greg’s people were to think about this and to move from city to country is already committed more or less to some extent anyway. another issue. Please don’t just think of things as being They understood probably because they’d potentially come from an Agricultural background, but the kids at farming. Think of them as much broader than that. the other schools hadn’t and there are opportunities in the whole scale of this that may have fitted those kids at Ingleburn High perhaps pretty well. So I’d love Endless'Opportuni/es'.........' to explore that with you and I would love to be able to • IT'professional' • Butcher' hopefully come away today with an idea of how that • Auc/oneer' • Flower'grower' • Farm'manager' • Forester' might be achievable. • Food'processing'technician' • Engineer' • • • • • • • • • •
Veterinarian' Farmer' Biologist' Shearer' Chef' Refrigera/on'mechanic' Agronomist' Journalist' Farm'hand' Seafood'processor''
©''Copyright'Australian'Year'of'the'Farmer'Limited'2011'
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• • • • • • • • • • '
Plant'operator' Biotechnologist' Baker' Long'haul'transport'driver' Hor/culturist' Land'economist' Marine'biologist' Sawmiller' Winemaker' And'so'on'............'
The other outcome that I’d like to try to get to today is what you would like to see the Australian Year of the Farmer do to help you. We’ve got a pretty well open palette at this stage and we’re having discussions with organisations like yours around the country but we would really appreciate any feedback you can give us, or anything that you think that we as an organisation, given
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that we’re national and we’re pushing this whole thing That’s a very brief overview of all the things that we’ve out on a national basis. Any way you think that we can got bubbling away at the minute. help you to do those two things, we would appreciate How can Career Advisers can help? feedback on that. So, before I open it up to discussion and hopefully lots of interaction, I’ll just let you know who we’re partnering with and a little bit of what’s going on in the careers area for the Year of the Farmer. As I mentioned before we’ve got this sort of multifaceted programme and within the programme we’ve got a multifaceted approach to careers advice. We’re partnering with people like the Federal Department of Education and the State Departments where we can; with people like the Primary Industries Centre for Science Education, PICSE. Some of you are probably aware of that. People like AgriFood Skills and Rural Skills Australia, so looking at some of the vocational side of it as well, and as I mentioned career organisations. We’ve managed to talk DEEWR into theming the 2012 Jobs Guide around Agribusiness so that’ll be nice to see what comes out of that. We’re intending to spend a bit of effort and to try to (you’d be aware of the career’s bullseyes that come out of that process), well we’re trying to resurrect those in a slightly different way that’s very focused on Agriculture. Not on Rural Studies, but on Agribusiness so looking at it from a slightly different sort of perspective and hopefully we’ll be able to roll those out during the year. We’re looking to perhaps find ways to deliver useful material to people like yourselves. We just need to know what you want and hopefully we might be able to help out there. We’re looking closely at the moment at participation in things like National Skills Week and various Careers Expos and so on around the country, and fairs and the like, and one of the keys things we’re able to bring to the table in all of this is a fairly significant ability to leverage the media because we have a very significant bunch of media partnerships in place and still being negotiated in a couple of areas, but they will be very significant and we would hope that we’re going to be able to use those media contacts to leverage again into this whole careers in the Agriculture area.
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1. By explaining to students and parents that agriculture is so much more than farming and encouraging people to consider careers within what will be the 21st Century’s major growth industry. 2. By encouraging city-based people to look outwards rather than inwards when it comes to careers and jobs, ie “exploring the endless opportunities”. If I could leave you with the above thoughts, and if you can let me know, or let us know how we can help you, then I’d love to open up the discussion. Female: The school I’m at which is Mosman High, we don’t have Agriculture as a subject, and also the kids are very much focused on city and so the thought, the image that they have of a farmer or agriculture or anything like that is – 1. Very hard work - 2. The remuneration isn’t worth it. I think the image has to change so that they can see that it’s not … By the time they get to year 12 they’re 17 or 18, they know that the infrastructure in the country is part of all this, they know that, but that doesn’t change the image or what is perceived. All we hear about is people leaving the land and if we want them to go out and do things, they’re saying “we’re not going to get enough money doing that for life.” Geoff Bell: That’s a very difficult thing that needs to be addressed for sure, and that’s really if you like, one of the underlying reasons for why we’re doing the Year of the Farmer. We don’t want that typical image to continue. In the short term it’s very difficult but having a Year of the Farmer, the idea is to try to start to change that stereotype and it is a stereotype. Yes, there are difficulties but there are also major positives and we need to tell the positives and actually change that perception.
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Female 2: I think your idea is really good. One of my favourite programmes is Landline but that’s my personal preference, but I think what you really need to do is to get a lot of advertising, get a website that’s interactive that sells things, maybe some rap music bringing things in. Research into things that kids really like. They like high-tech stuff. They like apps they can download; they like free things; they like competitions where they get money, because I hear a lot about money and how much things cost, and I think you’ve got to enter their world. We don’t need to enter your world. You need to enter theirs and it has to be entertaining; it has to be really punchy in my view; it has to have great music so they can connect. I didn’t know I could get a job out there and I don’t want to be isolated so you’ve got to solve that problem. How they can mix with their friends. They’ve got advanced communications, whatever. I think you’ve got to have something that speaks to those kids in the way that they like to communicate to get the message across, and it’s got to happen in year 7, possibly primary school. They need the basic skills and they need to know if they’re going to persevere with that, they’re going to get some really good returns, and that all the problems that they foresee out there are going to be overcome. Geoff Bell: Just in answer to that, or a comment on that. A lot of what you just said we are going to be doing. I don’t know how much we’ll be doing at primary school level but certainly early secondary school is the focus for us. There are a number of other things that will be bubbling away with competitions, with prizes, with music, with all of that sort of stuff because we recognise exactly what you’re saying, and that is part of the whole. Female 3: I guess with anything that you do in promotion for Careers, for our kids they need to relate so it won’t be the 55 year old farmers that you have to be putting up as role models. I guess the other thing is that some of them don’t get to the country, but I don’t know how you address that with school exchanges or anything like that so that they just see it. I think the closest thing at the moment is that “Keeping up with the Jones’s”
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where they’ve got two helicopters, three trucks, and three dozen horses. Female 4: What I was thinking is what about setting up something like a formal Gap year programme as a Jillaroo or a Jackaroo so that there’s somewhere that we all know that we can advertise for kids to log onto and where you have established relationships with farmers and they log onto the website and they click onto a different geographical area and you can show them opportunities that are available. The Gap year is becoming more and more attractive to kids, or even a three month, six month, a year, in different timeslots. Also exchange programmes between our urban kids and your rural children so you set up some sort of partnerships with schools in cities and schools in rural areas, and there are exchanges between them. Geoff Bell: Yes. I guess certainly both of those… I don’t control Jillaroo and Jackaroo programmes but certainly we will go and talk to some people about that and see whether that can be done. It may actually be there and it may be just a matter perhaps of publicising it better and so on. We will have a look at that for sure. Female 5: A couple of things. I think we’re talking a lot still about farms. No matter what else you’ve said, we’re coming back to farms. Big Regional Cities, I’ve got family in Tamworth too, and you go up there it’s got nearly everything that Sydney’s got, on a smaller scale. Kids need to realise that these regional cities have all those modern conveniences that a city like Sydney has and I think a DVD that showed some of those big regional centres that you’re not… I mean you can be a million miles from anywhere, but you don’t have to be. That kind of thing. I think the exchange programme is often difficult but certainly skyping or emailing with classes through an English programme, that kind of thing, starts to set up some of the relationships to realise that people out there haven’t got two heads and whatever, is a good way to go.
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Geoff Bell: Yes, thanks for that. We’re already aware of a number of school linkages that exist, not just in New South Wales, but around the country as well. There are some areas in New South Wales as well. I’m sure you’re aware of them. As part of the marketing effort, what we’re going to try to do I guess is to emphasise that to people and encourage schools from both city looking out, country looking in, whichever way you want to think of it, and actually trying to encourage those linkages, not necessarily physically. People might not move from Condobolin to Strathfield or wherever but maybe this day and age we can do a lot of that virtually. Maybe there are possibilities, more than email; maybe it’s a matter of live websites. The point I suppose is to try to break the stereotypes so that there isn’t some crusty old farmer standing with his rotten old hat on next to an old tin shed that’s got rust. We’re not going to do that. We’re going to try and change that so that people do see it as a bit different. Again we’re talking about farms but the point is right that there’s all these … I live in Coffs Harbour. I can be in Sydney in 55 minutes in the plane, 15 minutes either side of that, for about $80. It’d probably cost you $80 to go in a cab from here into the city wouldn’t it? So there are practical things that aren’t really barriers that people think are barriers. Female 6: Right from the outset the Year of the Farmer probably turns them off. Is there any way you could make it Year of Agribusiness? Geoff Bell: We debated the name of this for months before we went back to Farmer. It’s a real tough one but at the end of the day that’s what this is about. It’s about Farmers. It’s also about what sits around them but it’s about who produces the food; it’s about rural communities; it’s about … I think we settled on Farmer because Agribusiness just wasn’t going to cut the mustard from a marketing point of view. We can market Farmers and we can market them in a way that accentuates the positives and talks about what’s around them but Agribusiness I reckon we’re going to struggle.
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Female 7: I’m just interested. You noted perceived high upfront costs in people being a farmer and I am surprised that you said perceived high upfront costs because the upfront costs are obviously enormous in terms of getting into farming. I wonder whether you’d comment on some sort of restructuring that’s going to be needed in order for young people to actually move into farming in the future? Geoff Bell: Depends on what sort of farming you’re talking about. Some farming probably does have high upfront costs but some farming doesn’t. No more than any other business perhaps. If you’re talking some of the broadacre things where you’ve got big equipment costs or big costs associated with actually running the farm that could be a bit different to say, running a Teatree farm for example. I guess the point about that is that that’s a systemic thing that not being a lobby group we can’t do much about and we don’t want to really push that as a point, but, having said that we have made a submission for example to the National Food Plan that’s being developed in Canberra at the moment that says the Food Plan needs to find a way, or the Government needs to find a way such that Farmers get a fair days pay for a fair days work and a fair return on their investment whatever that investment is. Now in some cases that’s okay. In good years it’s probably okay for a lot of people. In bad years it’s not so there’s lots of complexity in all of that. I think there’s also other ways of getting into farming. You don’t have to be a farmer necessarily, that is an owner of a farm, to be involved in farming. You can perhaps be a farm hand. There’s no reason why you can’t work your way from the bottom as someone said in the panel today. We automatically leap to higher levels of training and so on. Maybe that doesn’t suit everyone and maybe there are ways of moving in. Female 8: I have students who are very interested in animal welfare and there have been some really negative images coming from export of live cattle and sheep. Very disturbing in fact the Four Corners programme several months ago that you may remember, and I’m wondering
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what’s been done to address that, if anything at all? It Geoff Bell: Okay. Thank you. caused a great deal of alarm I think for many people and what are the opportunities for improvement in that area? Female 10: Hi. I work in a rural community and I happen to be about 500 yards from CSU’s Wagga campus. We Geoff Bell: Look it’s probably not for me to actually have students in that district who say they’ve got to leave comment on that except that I will say from what I’ve Wagga so that they can go to the big city. I think the read myself in the media the ban has been lifted so biggest problem you have regardless is our population that cattle have been moving now for about six weeks, is on the coast, and the other thing is regardless of maybe a little bit more, within a system that treats wherever our children go, a family worries about the them humanely. Farmers don’t want to see animals support that they have wherever they get to. Our first mistreated. Why would they? It’s not in their interests speaker today spoke about the mentoring system that for that to happen. Again, I’m probably not the one to Macquarie Uni’s looking at introducing with its first year answer this but some of the panellists who were here students and that is just an amazing step and I don’t before are much better qualified than me, particularly the care which university you’re at, if you can provide that lady from Meat and Livestock Australia, but I suppose it for a student you will actually have a relatively strong also opens up opportunities. That’s part of this whole successful outcome. I am rurally based. Three of my value chain, is making sure that if we are going to export four children have had to move from our rural base to animals that they’re looked after, and there needs to be a bigger city to follow their particular interests. One of people inspecting that. There needs to be people who them has actually come back much to my surprise, but are qualified to understand it, qualified to design the the interesting part is where they’ve needed support for killing methods for the animals so they are humanely example when they’ve been ill, I’ve been lucky enough dealt with. Those sort of things are part of the whole to be two and a half hours away, get in the car and go thing and I would just say that yes, there were negative and help. I have a relative that’s close by so I’ve been images about that and I know that, again from my own able to call on that. I think that’s one of the biggest reading of the media, that farmers were horrified by it. issues you face for any family for any child to leave that support network and it doesn’t matter whether you’ve Female 9: You mentioned just a while ago that one of got country going to city, or city going to country. It really the opportunities is being a farm hand. You might have does make a difference as to how they survive. A lot of heard that there’s an innovative programme opened up students who come out to the country from the city may in the Monaro by the Monaro Farming Systems. There’s not have got the highest ATAR they required to get into a shortage of skilled farm labourers and farmers can’t the Sydney universities. They get out there and then afford to pay a farm labourer so what they’ve done find out what a great time they can have. They also find is they’ve got a group of farmers together and there endless opportunities that come from that. So it is a hard are twelve farms I think, and together they hired two one but I do think the support of the rural universities is trainees and so the trainees are billeted out to the a really really big one and the fact that the courses, and various farmers. It’s a really good idea of getting kids a lot of them are now actually going out of the cities and going to different places, but if you can support a into jobs on the land. student when they get there especially that first twelve Geoff Bell: I wasn’t aware of that but I’ll track it down. months, you make a big difference to your success rate. In the Monaro? Geoff Bell: I’ve noted both of those. I’ll follow up the Monaro one and I’ll follow up the idea of mentoring as well. Female 9: Monaro. Monaro Farming Systems.
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Female 11: I was just going to say something very similar. Several years ago my daughter went to a regional University and whilst there she met a boy and she’s now living in rural South Australia in Agribusiness. He’s on a farm with a pharmaceutical company. It was the experience she had at that regional University and at that University they actually had a lot of support there. It was a small campus, and that caused her to hence move from the city and stay out there. She has no interest in coming back so the regional Universities getting students out to them is a good step to get them out of the city. Female 12: Just a couple of comments. I think maybe one of the resources that you’ve got in Sydney that you could use are the large number of boarders that have come from rural areas to the city. I mean from personal knowledge I know of boarders who’ve come to Sydney, done a degree where they ended up in say the Finance section in Sydney but before long realised that they want to go back to the country, and kids who’ve done Science type degrees and are now very scientifically running their farms. So perhaps some of the boarders or ex-boarders who could tell their story would be useful. The campaign to get people, I think it was called “EnviroCities” or whatever that the State Government just ran, I heard they only got 211 people to move so obviously however they ran the campaign didn’t work. Geoff Bell: Thanks for that. The next session, we’ve got Hollie Baillieu who’s a country girl just finished an Agricultural Science degree at CSU Wagga, and she’s talking at one of the seminars, and we’ve also got Alison McIntosh who probably fits your description pretty well. She’s a young woman running her own business now but also running part of a family cattle business as well down near Crookwell. She’s here today too. That’s again one of the things that goes to what we were talking about before about image and the stereotyping and so on. There are all these people out there and we just have to find them and tell their stories.
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Someone mentioned to me up in Coffs Harbour the other day about a young 18 year old woman who is running a beef cattle stud up near Guyra. I rang her the other day and we’ll certainly get her involved. She is a country girl but what a fantastic story that’s going to make I think. Male: A couple of points. Firstly have you looked at places other than Australia and I’m thinking about Canada, I’m talking about Central America, I’m talking about the whole change in infrastructure around Europe and particularly France and the CAP. From my perspective having studied with CAP and being British, there’s an awful lot of parallels where essentially supermarkets force down costs to the point that efficiency becomes so important that the job becomes isolated and then in bad times people are pushed out of business and the big businesses buy the small businesses, and then the supermarkets start buying the farms. This one general point is about the whole infrastructure and how you could fight that. The other point would be if it is great out there, push the good stories. If it’s a good lifestyle, I’ve seen a little bit of that on advertising regional housing and that actually works I thought quite well. There’s got to be a lot of good stories that you could push. Say what’s the comparison between growing up in Liverpool and working in a car parts factory, and being in the country. Geoff Bell: That’s exactly what we intend to do. Just to come back to your first point though, we’ve grown this system over a long period of time and it’s like changing the super-tanker. It’s going to take a lot of effort to do that. Someone mentioned to me today and I must admit we’re a bit remiss. We do know a bit about Canada and we do know about Europe and so on. Someone mentioned to me at lunchtime Brazil, and how there is almost a flip sort of view of where Agriculture fits into the scheme of things in Brazil against Australia. So I might just have a bit of a look at Brazil and see what they’re doing over there.
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Female 13: Lyn Strong is one of the speakers today too and her programme, Paddock to Plate, or the other way round involves students in Science, Art, and across the curriculum. That’s pretty sensational in just opening their eyes as to what’s out there and the research they’ve got to do to do that programme.
The third suggestion that I have is a lot of people watch that programme that we were laughing about before, the Farmer wants a Wife. Why not tap into it because to be honest with you, the women who are attracted to some of those farmers are city girls, some of them are business girls. Maybe there is something you could do with that programme which could have, say, a little Geoff Bell: We’ve been talking with Lyn. We’re not sure talk about their career, what they actually do on the whether we’re going to be able to go down that path or farm. Maybe you could actually work together with that not at this stage but we’d certainly like to because it is a programme because I know it’s very popular. slightly different approach to the whole thing. Whether we can or not I don’t know at this stage. Geoff Bell: Natalie is already an ambassador for the Year of the Farmer so we’re already on the way. Female 14: I’ve got a couple of suggestions. Your great slide that you had with all the aspects. That is a brilliant Female 14: Great. Even if it was just on their website, slide and if you were able to make a lot of that stuff that you had links off their website. Not necessarily on “hot spots” that you could hit on, like as an example, TV. Animal Health becomes a hot spot and you could then go off, and, you know what I mean? Even if they were Geoff Bell: Again, we’re on to it. Natalie Gruzlewski just links to already existing websites, that would be is an ambassador for Year of the Farmer and they’re a great resource for us as Careers Advisers, or people just about to start filming next year’s series now and doing Agriculture or whatever, and that would not be a hopefully there might be a little bit of something like very expensive item. You could go right through. You that coming into it. could take the output services, marketing and sales, the transport. The transport people have a brilliant website Female 15: Just on that University link, UQ (University already where kids can look through trucks and what of Queensland) has the most fantastic programme they do, and trains. So by linking into existing websites advertising courses for city dwellers because their you could make that thing interactive and live and that agriculture centre which has the $80,000,000 equine would not be expensive. That’s the first suggestion I centre is just phenomenal as well as they’ve got Santos have. and whatever on board. The way they have promoted their city degrees linking with courses out at Gatton, The second suggestion I have is that since you’re pushing it might be worthwhile to look at that because I think business and Agribusiness is a business, perhaps you it’s the most impressive I’ve seen in linking agricultural could lobby the Universities to have electives in their degrees and qualifications to University degrees. Business degree, not in their Agriculture degree but in their Business degree, to look at Agriculture because all Richard Harding: I had exactly the same idea about a of a sudden your people from Mosman who are studying Gap year with my kids and then I thought about Latitudes Business or anywhere else are going to say, “oh, I never as a programme which have taken into consideration the thought about that”, and that would only have to be parenting concerns of having kids who are leaving that an elective but it might open the door to a whole lot of environment and then I thought, they need to be buddied things and I’m talking about city unis not just country up. If you send kids out to a rural area, send two or universities. three of them and they’re Gen Y’s and want to be in a
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group anyhow, and that would be my suggestion. Like a Latitudes programme for Gap years but buddy kids up for experiential time in Moree or wherever it is, cotton chipping or whatever they’re doing, and then rotate them through a number of experiences. Take them on a muster up northern Queensland.
ideas and I think it’s fantastic that we’re being listened to and we’re being invited to join in this conversation, and for the manner in which you’ve facilitated things Geoff and got the ball rolling, thanks very much mate.
Geoff Bell: Thank you very much everyone. That was great and I got a whole list of ideas that have come out We have run out of time. Can I just thank everyone of that and hopefully we can put some of those into who has actually contributed and participated? I want play and kick some goals. I appreciate the contribution to thank everyone who has contributed these wonderful everyone’s made too. Thank you very much indeed.
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You don’t have to live in the Country to have a Rewarding Career in Agriculture Alison McIntosh is an enthusiastic young Agriculturalist who is living proof that being involved in Agriculture does not just mean being a Farmer. Her article outlines her history and what opportunities are available in Australia’s Agricultural industries in both rural and urban regions. Alison is always enthusiastic to encourage school leavers into the industry and is contactable by email at alison@ajmlivestocksolutions.com.au
Since my time in Sydney, my career has seen me work on a farm, for the NSW government, as a Trainer at TAFE and now more recently in a capacity of my own business AJM Livestock Solutions www.ajmlivestocksolutioins. com.au The key messages I would like to share with you and your students are:
Although I have grown up on my family’s beef cattle 1. farm in Southern NSW, over the past 10 years I have established a very rewarding career path in Agriculture, which has taken me to many parts of the State, Country 2. and the World.
Agriculture is not just about being a farmer……. It is so much more, and we need young people with a range of skills. You can play a big role in any of Australia’s agricultural industries, while either living in the city or in the country. My first job, upon leaving University was for the industry 3. Agriculture is one of the most progressive and body of Meat and Livestock Australia, where I was exciting industries to be a part of, we are all about based in North Sydney. For a country girl this was a feeding the world. fantastic place to launch a career in Agriculture away 4. That Agriculture is full of wonderful people and from the farm. I learnt to work with many other people wonderful opportunities. in a very busy corporate environment, what I also really learnt was that Agriculture is really not just about what So in summary, there are many facets to the Australian happens on the farm. agricultural indusry and we need to make sure that today’s young people are aware of these opportunities As we know many of our Agricultural commodities are and that the perception of ‘agriculture is about being extremely important to the Australian economy. In many a farmer’, is changed to reflect the broad scope of areas, we in Australian lead the world in developments agriculture in Australia. and progress with Agriculture and to do this we rely on a number of people with a variety of skill sets, based both Alison McIntosh in the country and in the city.
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Edited Workshop Presentation from 2011 Annual Conference -
Marketing, Communications & Event Management in the Agricultural Industry’ Presenter: Kirsty John, Marketing, Communications the office at the end of the day. and Event Manager, Immediate Past Chair, RAS of NSW I’m going to talk about that some students will have it Youth Group and some people won’t and there’s some clear things Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to talk you can look out for in terms of characteristics which to you today. I guess my goal is that by the end of this will mean that they are suitable for an industry such as session I’ve given a little bit more insight into what my this. It’s really quite clear and I guess this is the sort of role involves on a day-to-day basis so that you can then thing I’ve learnt over the years, and based on the people communicate that back to any students who may show a that I’ve worked with, those sorts of characteristics that flair for this industry, and ultimately I come from probably do make you good at this career. Finally, how do you join one of the less traditional support industries attached the club? What are some of the pathways leading in? to Agriculture, but actually as we’re discovering, one of What are some of the opportunities for your students to the most important as we move forward in order for this get a taste for the industry, and where can they go for some more advice and some more background on the industry to remain viable and to continue to progress. industry as well? I’m going to start first with really going to the heart of the matter and I’m sure this is something that you Starting with my story, I went to Berkeley Vale would probably all agree with me that if you love what Community High School on the Central Coast, about you do then you never do work a day in your life, and an hour and a half drive north. Looking at and talking I certainly feel very privileged to be doing something about the characteristics that would suit a student going that I love to do. That’s been enhanced by the fact that into this industry, I was the one that was often involved I do work within the Agricultural sector and this is a in organising the school discos, and out there in front, fantastic industry to be attached to. I don’t come from organising fund raising activities, things like that. I was an Agricultural background. I didn’t come from a farm. lucky then that it was around that time that the first It’s something that I ultimately fell into but now work University degree really came up related to Recreation quite intensively within the Agricultural sector. So I’m and Tourism. So until the beginning of year 12 I really going to be telling a little bit about my story in order just had no clue what I actually wanted to do. There was to highlight the career pathway that I followed to get to nothing that stood out to me that said, “Yep, that’s it. That’s what I’m going to do”. My Careers Adviser the point where I am now. actually identified, “well you’ve got a bit of a flair for While Agriculture is allowing my industry to make a organising things and talking to people. This has just difference, and I think this is one of the big selling points come up, this has just been offered. Why not consider for this sort of career is that you actually can walk away going into this degree?” Which is exactly what I did. making a difference. I get up in the morning because I know that I am going to make a difference when I leave So it was three years full time at the University of
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Newcastle, Bachelor of Social Science (Recreation and Tourism). It was great in that it was a first time they were offering the degree. I was able to basically major in marketing, events, and also research. So my final year study was with Hunter Valley Research and I did a visitor tourism survey through the Newcastle Visitor Bureau. So I got some great experience that way. The beauty of these degrees now is the amount of hands on experience they’re expecting of their students so I just had a final year UTS student who had to do 240 hours of work placement. That’s quite a lot but I think it’s essential for this industry because it means that you are experiencing it first hand and understanding what goes into it.
Coles. I really got a sense for the fact of not for profits, and the value that you can bring to those organisations and those industries with the skills that you have and I really felt that I was now doing something with my skill set that was making a difference. That’s continued to drive me from that point forward. It was at the same time I got my first contract with the New South Wales Farmers’ Association. So the New South Wales Farmers’ Association is the key Agricultural organisation, the largest in Australia. They have over 8,000 farming members and they’ve been a client now for ten years. I manage their annual conference for 500 people every year as well as other food promotional events, education programmes etc. That was when I started to actually work into the Agricultural industry and from there I now have several clients in the sector and it’s just something that is fantastic for me and my staff, and we get a lot out of it. We also do have some other clients outside of agriculture because I do believe diversity is essential. You need to know what other people are doing because you can learn from them as well, but certainly within the Agricultural sector it’s where we really are able to make that difference, and I think that’s where the opportunity is for any students coming into this area.
I then went into my first job. Job disaster one I’m calling it, where I ended up in a bit of a boutique agency. They weren’t doing particularly well and I was writing the managing director’s golf newsletters and he’s looking after his own personal things on the weekend and what he was doing, so I went, “No. I’m out of here”. So then I was able to get a job with another boutique agency where I basically stayed for five years and worked my way up to the role of senior event manager. I worked all over Australia and overseas as well, so I’ve done events in eight different countries, and I was able to experience a lot about the industry and the value of what you need to do to really deliver a strong event and a strong So if your students are looking for a career which offers marketing campaign and communications campaign. diversity, where every day is different, my day is never ever the same, then the industry could be for them. If you I got to the point of going, “okay. This is all nice. This lay that with a diverse industry such as the Agricultural is all corporate. We’re spending millions of dollars on sector, then you really get some endless opportunities as these delegates going out, having a good old time, but to what they can achieve in their career. what are they walking away with? What am I walking away with based on the skills that I’ve got? So I decided This is a little bit of a snapshot of the current clients to leave because I wanted to try the not-for-profit sector. and programmes we’re working with within Agriculture. It was at that point that I was able to get a role with Clean- We’ve got the New South Wales Farmers’ Association, up Australia. I worked with Clean-up Australia and I was relevant programmes with them. Art for Agriculture, I the National Project Manager for Clean Up Australia Day know someone mentioned Lyn before and the education for two years and I also implemented their first plastic programme, so we’re responsible for rolling that out bag reduction programme through stores, so the first to schools and managing all the logistics, all of the time you saw the green bags through Woolworths and programme, all of the material attached to that. The
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Royal Agricultural Society of New South Wales. The great thing about Agriculture is that it’s a strong network. Everyone becomes your mate and it’s really got a real family feel about it. As a result of the work I was doing in the Agricultural sector I was then invited to join the Royal Agricultural Society of New South Wales youth group. I was chair for twelve months last year, and now we’re basically involved in running youth related programmes as part of the Sydney Royal Easter Show. That’s all just come about because of the fact that I’m now working within that sector so there are great opportunities once you’re in the sector to increase your skills. We also have Australian Universities Crop Competition. I think the key point though is that Agriculture has identified that there is a divide between city and country. It’s something that basically has reached crisis point which is something that you would have heard this morning as well. What we’re finding is that there’s a disconnect. People are not understanding where their food is coming from. They’re not understanding how it’s produced. They’re not having an affinity with farmers. There was a story that Lyn actually told me from one of the Archy Bull Prize entrants. We’re currently in judging mode with this at the moment. They were studying sheep and wool and the student said to the teacher, “Miss, where on the sheep does pork come from?” Now this is the sort of comment that can come up and that we hear quite regularly. So how do we address that because that’s a massive problem? Really what Agriculture has started to realise and we’re starting to see this come through stronger and stronger, is that they need a strong voice. They need a strong voice to future consumers and current consumers. They need a stronger voice to students so that we can funnel them into Agriculture. I guess my question to you outside of events and marketing, is have we ever really thought that if we don’t continue to drive our students into Agriculture, what will happen to where our food is coming from? Will we be happy to have food coming from Asia, America, Europe, because that is the situation we will get to if we don’t
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continue to drive students into the Agricultural sector? But how do you actually get that message out there? The answer to that is through marketing communications and events. It’s through this platform that we can start to tell Agriculture’s story which is where the opportunities exist and why there is this opportunity for your students to go into this industry and specialise in that. It’s going to become more and more and more relevant, and there will be more and more roles available in this actual area. Just trying to give you an understanding of the sort of things that we do, the Farmers’ Association. The Annual conference is for 500 people, part of that consists of 21 individual events. This is quite a specific business session. So we have business sessions, exhibition hall, partners programmes, young farmers programmes running, cocktail events, Minister meet and greets, breakfast sessions. So there’s a whole contingency of events that run over four days here in Sydney. So if you’re an Event Manager and your student was interested in this, what they’d actually be doing is being responsible for all of the logistics attached to that. So determining where is the best place to do this? How do we do this? What are the menu items we’re going to select? How are we going to communicate this to delegates? How do we register delegates? How do we take their payments? How do we book their accommodation? How do we book their flights? So all of the logistics like that go into an event like the Annual Conference. It’s about policy forming, it’s business orientated, and it’s about lobbying. So it also gives them a bit of an insight into, like a miniparliament basically, the New South Wales Farmers’ Conference. It’s in that context we’re then working on that lobbying level with this client. We then run education programmes such as Apple Quest. We do actually have probably some of the more fun things we get to do as an industry. Apple Quest is an education programme that has just rolled out to 200 schools in New South Wales. As the event managers and communicators we were responsible for developing and designing the education kits to tell the story of paddock to plate, and to highlight to students apples, and
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the different varieties, and the amazing health benefits of oysters. They have amazing health benefits as well as just getting people to understand how you taste and rate an oyster. What are you looking for? Where has it come from? These are the sorts of things that we do with the New South Wales Farmers’ Association, and again you can see that diversity from policy forming sessions, education programmes, to showcase food The other key component with that is obviously New events. As someone going into this career, as I said, you Zealand apples have started to come into the country. can definitely be assured of diversity. So we’re really focusing then on the “Aussie Apples”, you know, “I want an Aussie apple.” That’s the sort of Then we come to Art for Agriculture. This is something strong message we were then sending out to students very close to my heart and it’s absolutely imperative and and which will hopefully integrate back to their families again it continues along the same lines of education and so that when they’re at point of purchasing at the programmes going into schools. We’re having incredible grocery store they’re looking and going, “that’s got an traction with this and hoping to roll it out nationally next Aussie apple sticker on it. I’m going with the Aussie year. As part of this we manage Cream of the Crop apple.” That’s just another contrast in terms of the sort which is about students telling their stories to promote agriculture to a general audience. We communicate it of programmes that you do in this industry. out to all schools. We’re promoting the programme. In addition to that we have showcase food events. We’re accepting the entries. We’re loading them. The first one is Urban Paddock which is again making We’re managing the Award Ceremony. We’re getting sure we have touch points with consumers. It’s about the schools there. We’re managing the VIP guests. The showcasing innovative New South Wales produce that’s actual Award Ceremony is held at the Sydney Royal been produced in a different way and making people Easter Show. The great thing about Cream of the Crop is aware of what is out there. We’ve had snails from the then it’s on the social media platform, it’s had thousands Hunter Valley. We’ve had rabbit paella. We’ve had all of of hits. These PowerPoint presentations that kids have these sorts of things which general consumers might not done and designed to tell the story of Agriculture has necessarily think about as far as farming was concerned now had thousands of hits and that’s becoming a really but our brief was we needed to showcase the diversity important way for us to tell a message. of the industry in New South Wales. As a result we can showcase through a great event with food and regional Then the Archy Bull Prize which is the fibreglass cows. wine and also making sure then that the consumer was So real life fibreglass cows. It’s currently just been understanding where that produce was coming from. So rolled out in Western Sydney to 21 schools. They’ve attached to that we had signboards which pinpointed actually had a theme this year which was “what does it exactly “this is who supplied the produce, and this is take to feed and clothe Sydney for a day sustainably?” where in New South Wales it’s come from”. So we start So we’ve worked and we’ve developed the curriculum. We’ve developed all the materials that go with that. The to have that connection with consumers. cows go into the schools. The teachers work through We also just last week ran Oysters at the Ivy complex it through a term basis and then we have the judging in Sydney. We went through 800 dozen oysters and it’s process, the awards ceremony etc. Hurlstone Park really again a showcase event of where oysters are from, Agricultural School were the winners from last year. about eating apples, and the health benefits attached to it, and increasing their consumption of apples. But in addition to that actually also making them understand all the different varieties of apples out there. That’s probably the strongest feedback we got was, “Wow. Didn’t realise there were so many different varieties of apples.”
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and you certainly get that, so I think that’s one of the big selling points. As a result of my involvement with that you come across some amazing people. On this group we’ve got Ruth Redfern who’s National Marketing and Media Manager for National Farmers’ Federation, Jillian Kilby who’s based out in the country and was young civil engineer last year, Allison McIntosh who’s doing a In addition to that we run a young farmers champion presentation today as well. There’s a great industry and programme where we’ve identified young farmers from network of professionals in Agriculture. around the State. We’ve run comprehensive training programmes to allow them to be trained on marketing We actually manage as part of that the young farmer themselves because that’s one thing farmers need to challenge a Careers in Agriculture expo and seminar and know is how to market themselves. It’s quite different youth networking events. to talking to your peers. When you’re actually talking to a consumer audience you handle it a different way. So So, do your students have it? What is it that you can the young farming champions are doing that role for us. identify that if your students display these characteristics University Crops Competition has been about connecting then maybe they should consider a career in this sort of University students and the industry. It’s a two-day industry? Are they a natural organiser? You will start to competition that reflects components of what actually see that amongst students. Are you seeing those that happens on job. There’s often that disconnect between are out there organising the fundraising activities and when you leave university and really what does doing different things like that? Do they like order and happen in the industry. It involves field tours, industry do they have attention to detail? It’s one of the biggest presentations, and international study tours. After things I think that can set you aside is that attention to working on this I felt like I should have got an honorary detail and you like order, and you like things to be done degree in Agronomy. We basically wrote the sixty a certain way. Are they good with words? Do they have page training manual, worked with industry around a flair for writing? So they may be more a creative mind. Australia to develop the programme, and developed the Well they are perfect for this industry. Put them into the competition components. So very much an indication communications sector, into the public relations sector, again of that sort of diversity in your day-to-day life into events. You need to be able to have that flair with within this sector. They’re just some images from that writing. Are they adventurous? Absolutely essential. crops competition which was held in Temora. We’ve You need to have a desire to get out there, try something got them out in the fields doing yield potentials, seed different, not hang back, because at the end of the day you want to experience something before you can tell identification and things like that as well. somebody else to do that as well. You need to have Royal Agricultural Society of New South Wales, so as I that ability and that desire to want to go and do that. said I’m now on the RAS youth group. I think again what Do they like to look at things outside the box? Do they you can communicate to students is that if you start to question the way things are done? Again, imperative to work in the Agricultural sector, the network around you being successful. You need to be able to question. “Is is so great. I heard the comment before about how do that the way we should do that? How about if we looked you promote going back into regional towns? People at it this way? Maybe we could get a better outcome who I know who’ve moved to regional towns from the that way.” Are they a good communicator? You need city love the network and the family-ness of Agriculture to be able to communicate well. You need to be able
They created a fully working hydroponic system. It was city cow looking at a country cow. The reflection was in each other’s eyes. It was quite extraordinary this artwork that these students came up with. This is a great programme that I really love and that we manage on a day-to-day basis.
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to communicate well to delegates. You need to be able to communicate well to clients. You need to be able to communicate well to anybody that you come into contact with throughout that sector. Do they want a job that can make a difference? I’ve said this a couple of times but I do truly believe that within this sector and within Agriculture you actually do have the opportunity to make a real difference because we know we need to do something for this Agricultural sector to continue to thrive in Australia and to develop. If so, then welcome to events, marketing, and PR. So, how do you join the club? Formal studies are now really an essential within this area. You’ll find that most positions will ask for some degree of formal studies. There are several ways you can go about that. Obviously University will suit some people, may not suit others, but still is the most preferred and does offer a lot of different options. TAFE is running various different Diplomas and courses which you can put students through, and your Private Colleges. Private Colleges is third on my list and I’ve had a couple of interesting experiences with some Private Colleges. People spend a lot of money to go and do these courses and event courses etc. in Private Colleges go in and talk to the teachers. What is their experience? Were they just a P.A. for somebody, a small business down the road for a few years who organised the staff Christmas party? Because if they were, you’re not necessarily going to get the experience and the learnings you want. I’ve been to an award ceremony for a Private College and I was quite mortified by some of the things that they did where they had a stage area and then in some wisdom with the teacher, they decided that they’d put balloons with the silver stringy things all hanging down right in front of that stage area, and this was an award ceremony for the College, and as students got up to get their awards, you couldn’t actually take a photo because you couldn’t actually see them because they were then behind this, and I sort of thought, “this frightens me a little bit”. So, I would ask a lot of questions. “Who are the teachers? What’s their experience, before committing to some of the private
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colleges?” An entry level role is from $30,000 to $35,000 out of University. Management role for five plus years experience you’re being able to get around $80,000 plus. That’s sort of the general advertising figures on what’s currently out there as far as the sector is involved. Work Experience is a great testing ground and something that I would strongly encourage. Within the Agricultural sector there are actually some really good opportunities out there. First of all Sydney Royal Easter Show. There are stewards. What I’d encourage is some of the students if they’re interested in it, join the RAS youth group Facebook page and the details will be logged and posted to that on a regular basis and that’s a great introduction to an event in an Agricultural sector and exposing you to the industry. You don’t need to have any experience. We’re not going to ask you to lead a bull or anything like that so it’s a good way to get involved. Also just general show volunteers. The Sydney Royal Easter Show has a massive opportunity and a lot of opportunities for volunteers. The Sydney Royal Easter Show is one of the biggest events in the Southern Hemisphere and one of the biggest Agricultural shows in the world. It’s a great opportunity for some of your students to get a little bit of an insight. If you go to www.rasnsw.com.au and go to the Easter Show volunteer’s tab, and then you can follow the links from there. The other one for any rural areas is the Australian Council of Agricultural Societies. Now on their website which I’ve just put up the address there, www.acas.asn. au, it can then give you a link to show societies around New South Wales. Local shows are always looking for volunteers and assistance and again, a really good way to get into the industry and have a bit of a taste of it and see the sort of people you meet, and they’ll love it. A couple of then specific sites and information where you can start to get some possibly paid or volunteer positions in some large city events is Event Recruitment.
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They specialise in recruitment in the events sector www.eventrecruitment.com.au . Meetings and Events Australia has some fantastic resources on their website, www.meetingevents.com.au . Again you’ll find different forms and information that you can download for anyone that may be interested and they also have some accreditation information on there. Festivals and concerts in any of your local areas will always be looking for volunteers so ask them to put up their hand. Go and talk to the organisers and see what they can do. You’d be surprised at how many people are looking for that sort of support. The other thing I’d say in the Agricultural sector is social media is very powerful. I would get your students on to some of those social media platforms if they have an interest in Agriculture, and this is not just related to my own industry. This is Agriculture generally. People are very surprised when I say the Twitter traffic regarding agriculture is phenomenal and it’s educational, it’s interesting. I’m going to give you a few twitter sites that I’d recommend. The first one is @agchatoz. These guys are amazing. They’ve started this twitter account. Every Tuesday night they run an Agricultural forum on twitter. Last week it was about carbon farming. They’ve run about social media in Agriculture. They run them about issues and they ask for topics and the amount of farmers that interact with these sessions every Tuesday night, they run for an hour, is amazing. I would strongly recommend it as a great way just to see what’s going on. The other one is National Farmers, so @nationalfarmers. Obviously that’s the National Farmers’ Federation, so our national body for Agriculture. They also do some quite good twittering. Also Australian Year of the Farmer. You all heard Geoff before, but it’s a good one to follow and see what’s happening with the year @ayof2012.
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So the social media platforms, again it doesn’t matter where you are, and this is the other thing I’d say about this industry and the sector, is that it doesn’t matter where you are. I manage events overseas and in remote areas, and with technology these days you can do this job from anywhere. So, if students have a flair and they want to stay perhaps in a rural area, a lot of them could consider being a sole trader and going in and working, because as I said, there is more and more of a need that is going to come up in relation to this sector and being able to tell Agriculture’s story. You have your large Agricultural companies around Australia who often have internal events people, internal media departments. You have your rural councils. They generally have internal events people, internal media people, so there’s lots of different opportunities there as well. I guess the other thing is you don’t have to be in the city and you could do this remotely based on the technology that’s out there. I guess just to conclude is that I would be more than happy that if you ever had any questions or you had any students that might want to ask some questions, is for them to email me. That’s my email address up there, so kirsty.john@eventdirectors.com.au and I would be more than happy to respond to anyone that may have some questions or queries about the sector, about Agriculture etc. That’s really sort of the end of my formal presentation, so thank you. I hope I’ve given you a little bit more of an insight that this is a less traditional support sector for Agriculture, but there’s some really exciting things happening in this space. You can make a difference. It’s a great industry to be a part of and I hope to see some of your students in that field shortly.
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Art4Agriculture - connecting young people with the land Lynne Strong www.cloverhilldairies.com.au My name is Lynne Strong. Not only am I a farmer I am also the National Program Director of Art4Agriculture. As I have already loaded my CAA Conference presentation here http://www.slideshare.net/art4agriculture/its-notall-mud-and-flies I will use this opportunity to build on what I learnt from the Careers Advisors in the audience at the conference. Firstly as a farmer I was delighted to share my reasons for farming I farm because • •
•
I believe feeding, clothing and housing the world is the noblest profession I like the mental intensity, the constant review process, and the drive to get up each day and do it better. The fulfilling challenge of balancing productivity, people, animals and the planet Inspirational people farm. Feeding, clothing and housing the world now and in the next 50 years is going to require an extraordinary effort. This means we need extraordinary people to take up the challenge.
As a provider of in-school agricultural engagement and awareness programs about food and fibre industries my team is acutely aware that interest in Primary Industries and its careers needs to start early in a child’s development in primary school and continue to be developed through the entire schooling experience. In addition, decisions around Primary Industries and Agribusiness careers are heavily influenced by parents
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and teachers We know teachers are the key. Reaching and influencing Australia’s 286,000 teachers is a massive task - requiring a heavy emphasis on ‘practice’ rather than ‘policy’. This includes providing them with high quality tools, training and industry networks that are structured to help them deliver against their curriculum goals. Yet most school based initiatives aiming to incorporate primary industry contexts into the classroom have failed because they are poorly conceived, too narrowly focused (to one specific industry sector for example), underresourced, have no or inadequate teacher professional learning components to the activities, or are not designed with teachers’ needs, capabilities and capacities in mind. Encouragingly, across all Primary Industries there is a strong desire to better engage with the education sector. Students are tomorrow’s workforce, decision makers and consumers. Our research has found that when exposed to Art4Agriculture programs, (www.art4agriculture. com.au ) they are enthusiastic about food and farming and are better informed about the way their foods and fibres are produced with 99% of students saying farmers were important to them and reporting an increase in appreciation of agriculture. Following their involvement in the Art4Agriculture program the Archibull Prize nine out of ten (both male and female) secondary school students said that farming was a good career choice for young women and men. Eighty per cent of secondary students said participating in the Archibull Prize has made them more interested in a career in Agriculture.
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At the conference I sat in on as many presentations as I possibly could. I did this to not only hear what the other speakers were saying but primarily to hear the feedback the Careers Advisors were providing to the speakers in each of the presentations. I was very disappointed that Agriculture had not appointed some one to do the same.
survey for Careers Advisors that will allow Agriculture to be made aware of these barriers and determine how we can best work together
Art4Agriculture program outcomes are indeed exciting for Agriculture but turning the light on to careers in Agriculture is one thing, delivering on the promise is the Two-way conversations between teachers and our food outcome we must now focus on and I look forward to and fibre industries are pivotal if we are going deliver working with the CAA networks to ensure Agriculture the type of initiatives that work for teachers, students achieves this end game and the education system. Annabel Gay presented a workshop at our 2011 I found Careers Advisors at the conference were quite Conference and detailed the wonderful work the open to promoting career pathways in the AgriFoods Country Education Foundation of Australia are doing to sector to students but found many barriers that encourage rural youth in developing their skills, interests agriculture needs to address in order to provide a and abilities. rewarding experience for everyone involved Below is an outline of what the Country Education With this mind I have spoken to the Australian Year of the Foundation of Australia undertakes and achieves. To Farmer team who I believe are putting together an online make use of their programs or to find out more visit the website www.cef.org.au�
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The Country Education Foundation of Australia Annabel Gay’s presentation detailed the wonderful work the Country Education Foundation of Australia are doing to encourage rural youth in developing their skills, interests and abilities. Below is an outline of what the Country Education Foundation of Australia undertakes and achieves. To make use of their programs or to find out more visit the website www.cef.org.au
Mission Statement To foster the further education, career and personal development opportunities of rural youth, through community-based encouragement and financial assistance. About the Country Education Foundation of Australia (CEFA) Founded in 1993, CEFA is a national not-for-profit organisation which provides financial assistance for rural youth so that they may be able to achieve their post high school education, training and vocation goals. We do this by establishing local education foundations across regional Australia that are incorporated as members of CEFA. CEFA provides the framework, expertise and support required to mentor each community through establishment and the ongoing operation of each local Education Foundation. To assist each of our local education foundations become established, CEFA provides up to $10,000 in funding over the first three years by matching locally raised funds. We currently have 42 member communities.
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For young Australians living in rural and remote areas, the substantially greater cost as well as social and geographical factors of pursuing further education and training opportunities, as compared to their metropolitan counterparts, is often prohibitive. This had lead to far fewer numbers of rural youth being able to achieve their post high school aspirations, for example the participation rate of rural/regional students in tertiary education is 18% as opposed to metropolitan students at 26%. The vast majority of the young people our local education foundations provide assistance and encouragement to would not have been able to achieve their goals due to financial constraints. For the rest, it helps relieve some of the financial strain on themselves and their families. Our grants are not awarded on the basis of academic success and they typically range from $500 to $3,500. To ensure accountability and good governance, students do not receive cash grants; rather their local foundation pays the goods and service providers or reimburses the student for a pre-agreed expense once an official receipt has been provided. All local education foundations select their recipients based on the same three criteria; that the applicants have a realistic goal; that they have shown dedication to achieving their goals and that they are in need of financial assistance to be able to achieve their further education, training or career goals. CEFA’s program is truly unique: no other program in Australia focuses solely on helping rural youth achieve their goals and aspirations as they transition from high school into further study or the work force. By communities investing in their youth, recipients gain a strong message that their community believes in them and is supportive of their aspirations. This is a tremendous boost to a young person’s confidence, right when they need it the most.
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Aims of the CEFA Program • To ensure as many young people as possible from rural and regional areas are able to achieve their post high school education, training and vocation goals • To build capacity and long term sustainability in rural communities by investing in local youth and creating diversity of skills • To provide a non-academically based grants program to ensure we support a broad range of abilities and interests • To build partnerships with industries and institutions such as our education partnerships that provide additional financial support to our local grant recipients. The Outcomes • To date 1,709 grants have been given totalling $1,705,326 • In 2011 alone 349 grants were given with a total value of $372,595 • 98% per cent of recipients complete the training or further education for which they received a grant • CEFA has a range of partnerships that provide our young grant recipients with additional funding and scholarships. These partnerships include those with Rabobank, universities and TAFE-level colleges and the Rotary Club of Sydney. In 2011 these partnerships provided an additional $448,295 in tertiary education and leadership development scholarships
Canberra Institute of Technology Southern Cross University University of Sydney Charles Sturt University Tocal Agriculture College University of Technology Sydney Flinders University University of Adelaide University of Western Sydney ICMS University of Canberra University of Western Sydney James Cook University University of Newcastle - Hawkesbury Campus Macquarie University University of New England University of Wollongong Local Country Education Foundation communities around Australia include:
New South Wales Balranald Edward River (Deniliquin,Conargo) Merriwa Blayney/Molong/Orange Gilgandra Monaro (Jindabyne,Cooma,Bombala) Boorowa Goulburn Moree Braidwood Griffith Mudgee Broken Hill Gulargambone Narrabri Deductible Gift Recipient Status Coleambally-Darlington Point The Country Education Foundation of Australia is a Gunnedah-Mullaley registered charitable organisation with Deductible Gift Temora Recipient (DGR) status. Coonamble Harden Our Education Partners include: West Wyalong Australian Catholic University NIDA University of NSW Australian National University QLD University of Technology University of South Australia
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Cootamundra Hastings (Port Macquarie) Yass Cowra Hay Young Dubbo Lockhart
Kapunda Lameroo Eudunda Kimba Torrens Valley Kangaroo Island Wool, Wine and Wheat (Clare-Burra-SnowtownBalaklava-Riverton)
Queensland Blackall-Tambo Clermont Maranoa (Roma-Injune-Surat-Muckadilla-MitchellAmby-Mungallala-Jackson-Yuleba-Wallumbilla) Paroo (Cunnamulla, Eulo, Wyandra, Yowah)
Northern Territory Central Australia (Alice Springs)
South Australia Coober Pedy
Board of Directors Nick Burton Taylor AM Chairperson David Smithers AM Stuart Black Michael Boyce Julia Burton Taylor Secretary Guy Milson Treasurer Katie Walker
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Patron Her Excellency Ms Quentin Bryce, AC Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia
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Web Tools for Learning about Careers in Agriculture Stephanie Coombes and Samantha Townsend have both created informative websites about the career opportunities in the Agricultural industry both in rural and urban locations. They are a fantastic resource which parents, students and teachers will find immensely valuable.
message to students is -
“Careers in Australian Agriculture” (CAA) (www. ausagcareers.tumblr.com) aims to connect with young adults in urban & rural Australia who may have never considered a career in agriculture. It aims to repair the distorted vision of food and fibre production which has arisen with the city and country disconnect, and show that the agricultural industry is Interesting, Innovative and Important.
Samantha Townsend first year student, Bachelor of Ag Science
“2012 is the Year of The Farmer, so why not learn about the endless opportunities to study and work in agriculture, from trades to professions, capital cities to rural Australia and everywhere in between. Take a few minutes to meet the people involved in Australian food Stephanie Coombes recently graduated in Bachelor of and fibre production, and see if you want to embark on Ag. Science (Hons.) the ag-venture of a lifetime!”
My name is Samantha Townsend and I am a first year student studying a Bachelor of Agricultural Business Management at Charles Sturt University (CSU), NSW, at the Orange Campus.
I created my website ‘Youth in AGtion Australia’ http:// CAA profiles people of all ages studying, training and www.youthinagtionaustralia.com/index.html to promote working in the Australian agricultural industry, from the rural jobs to young people and encourage them to enter boardroom to the bush. A diverse range of careers are the agriculture industry. showcased, to illustrate that agriculture may begin in the paddock, but there are many steps in the supply chain to What got me thinking about this is the fact we are get our produce to plates in Australia and around the from a rural community and we only had three students world. Careers and trades in Science, Communications, doing Agriculture at our High School, for the HSC. Also, Economics, International Trading, Marketing, Research whilst on a visit to CSU in Orange for an Agricultural & Development and Information Extension are currently Conference, they told us how there are approximately profiled, to name a few. 2000 Agriculture related jobs out there for Agriculture Science graduates and we are currently only able to fill CAA has consolidated a significant amount of agri- 700! educational material in a single access point, providing information about studying agricultural related courses With a diminishing workforce in Agriculture and a at TAFE and University, classroom activities and growing population – food security is going to be a real competitions, teacher resources and scholarships. issue in the future! The target audience is Teachers and high school and Agriculture is a great industry to get into and there are undergraduate students, with plans to extend into the so many career paths you can take within the industry. primary school demographic in the near future. CAA’s With my website, I have linked to lots of blogs of some
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amazing and inspirational (and some quite funny) people to inspire younger people. I want them to read about actual people and not what they perceive Agricultural jobs are to be through the media.
so younger people will hopefully read it and be inspired to want to do further training too in Agriculture. I want them to see it can be an exciting adventure into their careers too!
I have also listed job sites to help those who are looking for work in Agriculture as well as scholarship information, as I find it, to help those out who are inspired to enter the industry. I have also included videos etc. to hopefully pique their interest.
When you hear there were 29 Universities in 1989 offering Agricultural courses and now there are only 9, due to low numbers of applicants, it is time to sit up and take notice.
If we don’t start at the grassroots – and aim for the I have started a blog at University – through my website younger generation, Agriculture and indeed food security ‘Blogging the AGVentures of an Undergrad AG Student’ in the future is going to be a real issue.
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Do you have international students at your school? CONNECT:
UOW UNDERGRADUATE EXCELLENCE SCHOLARSHIPS At UOW, we like to reward outstanding students. So if you have high achieving international students at your school, UOW would like to offer them a scholarship – and they don’t even need to fill in an application form! The UOW Undergraduate Excellence Scholarship (UES) offers them a 25% reduction of the normal course tuition fee for the duration of their course, up to a maximum duration of four years. It is available for all Bachelor degree programs except Medicine, Nursing, Nutrition/Dietetics, Exercise Science/Rehabilitation and Psychology. No Quotas! The good news is that there is no limit to the number of scholarships available, as long as your students meet the academic criteria for the scholarship, they will receive it. Eligibility and Applications Your students don’t need to make a separate application for this scholarship because they’ll be considered automatically by placing UOW as one of their UAC preferences. To receive the scholarship, they simply need to meet the academic criteria and enroll as a full-time international student at UOW. If they are successful they will receive the scholarship offer via email at the same time as their offer from UAC. Ongoing Eligibility As long as they maintain an average mark of 65% in each session, and complete the normal full-time study load as an international student, they will automatically continue to receive the scholarship. Want to know more? Go to: http://www.uow.edu.au/future/international/apply/scholarships/ Or Contact: Skye Rickey, International Schools Liaison Officer Phone: 02 4221 3455 or Email: skyer@uow.edu.au
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UAC Update & Calculation of ATAR UAC – what’s happening?
atar/index.html?id=1329281044634” http://www.uac. edu.au/assets/video-demos/all-about-your-atar/index. Outline of Presentation at CAA Annual Conference 2011 html?id=1329281044634. UAC’s Community Liaison team, Donna Munro and Trudy Noller, presented an overview of what’s happening right now for current school leavers, and how UAC can support their needs. The session concluded with some information about what’s planned for 2013, and a short workshop to gather some questions for the planned FAQs for Careers Advisers publication.
A video about Changing preferences can be found at HYPERLINK “http://www.uac.edu.au/assets/ video-demos/undergraduate/changing-preferences/ index.html?id=1329281115861” http://www.uac.edu. au/assets/video-demos/undergraduate/changingpreferences/index.html?id=1329281115861. Three new publications are planned for 2012 – a booklet for Year 11 and 12 students, and FAQs for Careers Advisers, and for parents. We are also planning a log-in area on the UAC website for Careers Advisers. Initially they will be able to access an electronic copy of their school’s offer list.
Current Year 12 students need information about Apply, their ATAR, changing preferences, and offers. UAC offers several resources to help Year 12 students - as well as providing UAC News and Directions, Schoolink (on the UAC website) and publications such as the Scaling Report for those who support students during Apart from a short amount of time at the end of the this stressful time. session which was devoted to a group brainstorming There are several new publications being planned now session to identify some FAQs for Careers Advisers, and for 2012, for current school leavers, Year 11 and the remainder of the presentation consisted of a walk12 students, and those who support them. Two short through of five stages in the calculation of the ATAR, videos are available on the UAC. Understanding your and some frequently asked questions. To follow are the ATAR is on the UAC website at HYPERLINK “http:// slides from this section of the presentation. www.uac.edu.au/assets/video-demos/all-about-your-
What’s happening now? Current school leavers: « APPLY, ATAR, change of preference & offers - UAC Guide (local and international) - EAS and ES booklets - ATAR publications - Want to apply to uni? brochure - Schoolink: Yr 12 resources Support: - UAC News and Directions - Scaling Report - Schoolink: .ppt presentations and APPLY demos
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What’s planned? Current school leavers: « Short videos - Understanding your ATAR« - Changing preferences Year 11/12 students: « Yr 11/12 booklet Support: « Careers Advisers’ portal/log-in area « FAQs for Careers Advisers« « FAQs for parents
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WHAT is the ATAR?
HOW is the ATAR calculated? STAGE 5 Truncate to nearest .05
The Australian Tertiary Admission Rank « a numerical measure of a student’s overall academic achievement in the HSC in relation to that of other students. It’s about POSITION. « a number between 0.00 and 99.95 (only ATARs above 30 are reported) « intended for use by universities to rank and select school leavers for admission to university
STAGE 4 Year 7 percentiles STAGE 3 Year 12 percentiles STAGE 2 determining the aggregate STAGE 1 controlling for competition
WHO is eligible for an ATAR? To be eligible for an ATAR you must satisfactorily complete at least 10 units of ATAR courses including at least: « eight units of Category A courses « two units of English « three courses of two units or greater « four subjects
WHAT contributes to the ATAR? « The ATAR is based on an aggregate of scaled marks in 10 units of ATAR courses comprising: - the best two units of English - the best eight of the remaining units, which can include up to two units of Category B courses « Marks can be accumulated over a five-year period, but if a course is repeated, only the last satisfactory attempt is used in the ATAR calculation. « A scaled mark is calculated the year the course is completed.
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Stage 1 – controlling for competition For each course, examination marks and moderated assessments are averaged to produce a raw mark, which is changed into a scaled mark. Exam mark Scaled mark
Raw mark
Moderated assessment mark
Scaled marks are marks students would receive if all the course candidatures were the same. The scaling algorithm starts from the premise that a student’s position in a course depends on: - how good he/she is in that course, and - the strength of the competition. Scaling controls for the strength of competition
Stage 2 – determining the aggregate For each student an aggregate mark is formed by adding together the scaled marks of: - the best two units of English - the best eight units from the student’s remaining courses, (no more than two units from Category B courses can be included) 1 unit (English)
1 unit (English)
1 unit
1 unit
1 unit
1 unit
1 unit
1 unit
1 unit
1 unit
Aggregate
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Stage 3 –Year 12 percentiles
ATAR-eligible percentile
All Year 12 students who are eligible for an ATAR are ranked on the basis of their aggregates. ATAR-eligible percentiles, which show the position of students relative to their ATAR cohort, are then determined for these aggregates. 98.8 90.8 77.0
(77% of the 2010 ATAR cohort received an aggregate mark of 350 or less)
Frequently asked questions C an my s chool, my clas s mates or my choice of s ubjects affect my ATAR ? Moderation and scaling processes aim to remove differences between schools and courses. Students can achieve high HSC marks and high ATARS regardless of courses attempted or school attended.
59.8 42.1
Reference: Report on the Scaling of the 2010 NSW HSC Table A1
26.3 13.1
150
200
250
300
350
400
450
Aggregate
Stage 5 – determining the ATARS
FAQs
Why is one cours e counted towards my AT AR when another cours e where I received a higher HS C mark does not count?
When the position of each student relative to the full Year 7 cohort has been determined, the final step is to truncate these percentiles to the nearest 0.05, starting at 99.95. Here are some examples from the 2010 calculations.
Whether a course counts depends on your position in the course and the scaled mean of the course. If the scaled means are the same, the course in which you have the better position is more likely to be included.
ATAR
Range of percentiles
Lowest aggregate
99.95
99.951-99.999
476.2
99.50
99.501-99.549
455.2
99.00
99.001-99.049
444.8
There are occasions when a better position will compensate for a lower scaled mean.
98.00
98.001-98.049
430.0
(Reference: Report on the Scaling of the 2010 NSW HSC, pp24-25)
If your positions are similar, the course with the higher scaled mean is likely to be included.
Stage 4 – Year 7 percentiles
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FAQs Why is my ATAR low in comparison to my HSC marks?
100 90
Because ATAR is about position, and even high HSC marks don’t necessarily mean a high position.
80 Year77percentile percentile Year
In 2010, 54 221 students received an ATAR out of approximately 80 000 students who started Year 7 with them. To make NSW ATARs comparable to ATARs calculated in other states, students’ positions relative to the TOTAL cohort, including those who left before Year 10 and those Year 12 students who were not eligible for an ATAR, are calculated.
70 60 50
Fred and Laura’s results show the large difference in ATARs arising from much smaller differences in HSC marks.
40 30 20 10 0 0
20
40
60
Year 12 percentile
80
100
Year 12 percentile
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Fred and Laura Course
HSC mark
Percentile
Percentile
Biology
70
38
80
70
Business Studies
70
35
80
66
English Advanced
70
9
80
47
Mathematics
70
27
80
55
Modern History
70
25
80
62
Visual Arts
70
15
80
54
ATAR
57.05
The story of Fred and Laura illustrates that you can’t estimate your ATAR from your HSC marks, and it explains the difference between performance and position. Fred and Laura studied the same subjects for the HSC. Fred got marks of 70 for all his courses, while Laura’s marks were all 80. Even though their HSC marks only differed by 10, the difference between their ATARs is more than 20. This is explains the difference between performance and position. HSC marks between 70 and 79 are PERFORMANCE Band 4 results. These are average HSC marks and a large percentage of students are in this category. Fred and Laura’s marks tell us how they have PERFORMED. Laura has consistently performed 10 marks better than Fred. But remember, the ATAR is about POSITION. If you get marks in the 70s, you need to be in the high 70s because the mean or average mark for each course is generally between 70 and 80, and you need a mark above the mean to be POSITIONED in the top 50 percent of students. Also remember that the mean ATAR is just below 70.
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HSC mark
80.15
The percentile column in the Fred and Laura table tells the story of their POSITION. For example, Laura’s mark of 80 in Biology positioned her in the 71st percentile which means she has done better than 71 percent of Biology students. Fred, on the other hand with his mark of 70 in Biology, is in the 39th percentile. This means that Fred was positioned higher than only 39% of Biology students. Even though Fred and Laura’s PERFORMANCE only differed by 10 marks, their POSITION differed by 32 percentile points. This example often helps students to better understand the ATAR, and why their HSC marks in the 70s may result in an ATAR of 60 or below. Thank you to the conference delegates who attended the UAC workshop, for your contribution to the discussion, feedback on UAC plans and resources, and suggestions for our forthcoming ‘frequently asked questions for Careers Advisers’ publication.
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Help your students
Make it happen at
UTS:INSEARCH is a premium pathway provider to the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), one of Australia’s leading universities and awarded five stars for excellence in higher education in the QS Star Top Universities Ranking System in 2011. At UTS:INSEARCH, our whole reason for being is to propel students into UTS. UTS:INSEARCH offers UTS Foundation Studies and diplomas which could fast track students into the 2nd year of a UTS undergraduate degree, depending on the course they choose. UTS:INSEARCH offers the following pathways: n Business n Communications
& Architecture n Engineering n Design
Technology n Nursing & Health Sciences n Science n Information
At UTS:INSEARCH we ensure our students are happy, well supported and importantly, have the skills they need to excel in their studies. We offer: n Small n n
New diploma students at the end of 2011, were eligible to articulate to UTS
83%
Overall UTS:INSEARCH student satisfaction
89%
Of students agreed that UTS:INSEARCH teaching staff are very professional
86%
Of students indicated that UTS:INSEARCH has high course standards
93%
Of students felt that UTS:INSEARCH teaching staff are always helpful
Source: 2011 INSEARCH Student Satisfaction Tracking
Matthew Alfons
Why students succeed at UTS:INSEARCH
n
95%
class sizes Highly qualified, experienced teachers Academic Advisors and study skills support Social clubs and organised student activities
Australia UTS:INSEARCH Diploma of Engineering, UTS Bachelor of ICT Engineering “ I chose INSEARCH because I had a goal to get into UTS which I couldn’t do because of my high school marks. Studying at INSEARCH secured me a place in the second year of study at UTS. My experience at INSEARCH has been great, not only have I met a lot of people from different backgrounds, I’ve also learnt a lot. I’ll never forget my time here.”
For more information or to request a school visit contact: David Sam [E] david.sam@insearch.edu.au [T] 02 9218 8749 [M] 0408 674 768
www.insearch.edu.au For full course and articulation details please refer to www.insearch.adu.au INSEARCH CRICOS provider code: 00859D UTS CRICOS provider code: 00099F
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INSEARCH Limited is a controlled entity of and pathway provider to the University of Technology, Sydney.
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Career Opportunities for Young People Passionate about Primary Industries Trudy Glasgow joined NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI) more than 10 years ago, having previously worked as a Journalist, PR Manager and Media Adviser after studying a BA in Communications at Charles Sturt University (Bathurst) specialising in print media. With NSW DPI she has worked in media and public relations, gained further experience in a ministerial office, managed events and sponsorship, and developed new stakeholder engagement skills – experiences that collectively mean she regards this role as a standout in her career to date. Trudy has provided an insightful article, and useful resource, into what the NSW DPI undertakes. In her words – “The chance to work closely with farmers and primary producers, as well as extremely talented and committed researchers, vets, scientists and educators, has been inspiring. Not to mention meeting some truly remarkable industry leaders and regional community members along the way. I would encourage any young person with a passion for primary industries, an interest in research or food production, or in communicating issues relating to regional Australia, to consider exploring work opportunities with NSW DPI.” For young people interested in a career in farming, agriculture or primary industries in general, the NSW Department of Primary Industries (NSW DPI) has a broad range of opportunities to offer. Our primary industries sector – including working in a government department like DPI – enables you to make a difference in a range of food and fibre production areas, help maintain natural
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resources, and even live and work in regional NSW. From media management to animal disease research, to water quality monitoring, to discovering how to produce the best tasting fruit, NSW DPI offers jobs in these areas and more. Getting agricultural research adopted on farms is vitally important – and the role played across the State by our agronomists, livestock officers and horticulturists is essential in assisting communities to understand, manage and adapt to new ideas and practices. Our state’s 40,000 farmers feed and clothe Australians and the world with a vast array of produce - from meat, milk, wool and grains to oilseeds and horticultural crops like winegrapes, fruit and vegetables. In fact, NSW is Australia’s most valuable agricultural state. NSW farmers are also leading employers in rural and regional communities and sustainably manage over two-thirds of the NSW land mass for future generations. Increasing the competitiveness and profitability of our agricultural industries while ensuring good environmental management of our natural resources, is essential for NSW’s economic growth. NSW DPI is well placed to work with NSW farmers to achieve these goals for the benefit of the whole community. We have some of the best and brightest people working for our state including scientists whose work has been ranked in the top one per cent of world research in various fields. As well as highly trained scientists, we also have extension officers and educators who are experts in their field and work to maximise opportunities for our agricultural industries. Through innovation and skills development, our staff are working with industry and other partners to manage our crop, pasture and animal
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based farming systems for better yields and greater For more information see www.dpi.nsw.gov.au or www. tocal.nsw.edu.au resilience to the tough Australian climate. NSW DPI staff work closely with industry groups and community organisations in a team approach, especially when it comes to promoting better awareness about where our food comes from – and how important primary industries are to our everyday lives. And you don’t necessarily have to go to university to be able to work with NSW DPI or in primary industries – NSW DPI’s Tocal College offers a range of farm management and related courses that can help set you on your primary industries career pathway.
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Trudy Glasgow Manager Sponsorship, Events and Stakeholder Communications NSW Department of Primary Industries
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Edited Transcript from the presentation of Sue Gazis, NSW Institute of Teachers at the 2011 Annual Conference -
Careers Advisers and the Institute of Teachers’ Sue Gazis: Thank you for the opportunity to come here and speak to you. We were really pleased to receive the invitation at the Institute. The Institute commenced its operations back in October 2004 and since that time we’ve got close to half the New South Wales teaching profession engaged or involved in the accreditation process whether at the beginning teacher phase or some of the higher levels, so there’s been a fairly quick turnaround. I’ve been involved with the Institute pretty much from the beginning and quite broadly speaking its operations deal with the pre-service initial teacher education area. There is approval of courses that occurs and the Institute basically works through a series of panels that actually approve all the different programmes. To date there’s been about 1,800 people actually involved with those different panels. It’s a huge operation and it’s one I think not everybody is aware of.
actually mean, but it’s a fairly broad group and it is to be inclusive and what we’re going to see is more and more people particularly in specialist areas come on board. Particularly around the accomplished leadership areas and that’s just simply because of the cycle that the Institute also finds itself in but also where the profession itself in those areas were sitting at at the time the Institute commenced. That’s something the new Chief Executive of the Institute, a fellow called Patrick Lee, is quite keen that it is far more open and inclusive in that way. I think we needed to tease out from the brief I got, what’s actually meant by teaching and what are the ways in for the various groups that are sort of specialist groups. There’s a group of teachers that are existing teachers and that when the Institute commenced it was pretty much most of the teaching profession. So if you commenced teaching in New South Wales before 1st October 2004 you would be called an existing teacher. The Institute of Teachers Act didn’t apply to you at that point unless you were going to go into the voluntary areas. Some people want to do the professional competence accreditation and those volunteering now are actually volunteering at the accomplished and leadership level. So that’s the existing teachers and under the Act the Institute has no power with regards to those teachers.
The other aspect of that is the actual accreditation of teachers. You may probably be more familiar with the accreditation that occurs for beginning teachers once they enter the profession and they go through that process. We have a number of teachers now who are maintaining that accreditation and we have an everincreasing number of people who have either gotten professional accomplishment or leadership or are in the process of working through that accreditation. So with New scheme teachers refers to the Institute of Teachers that, the invitation was, “where is the fit for Careers Act 2004. It doesn’t mean that the teacher is new but the scheme itself is the Act and that term is actually Advisers?” and I thought we’d start there. going to change as part of the changes to our legislation Broadly speaking anyone teaching in a school can be that are coming through. Basically those teachers either part of the New South Wales Institute of Teachers commenced teaching in New South Wales on or after accreditation framework and that comes down to the 1st October 2004 or for whatever reason, there has the word teaching and teach and what that might been an absence from teaching for over a five year period
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and they come back as what’s called a returning teacher. Audience Member: What’s the process of registration That’s sort of a time issue about when the Act actually if you have been teaching since before 2004? occurs and who it takes in because of timing issues. Sue Gazis: Well, unless you really want to be accredited, Let’s say, for example, I’ve taken leave of absence for six you would need to apply for accreditation and depending years but I’ve decided to teach two days in the third year. on the level, at the professional competence level there’s That would be enough and the returning teacher policy voluntary access for that as well and you just apply wouldn’t apply to that person. All it takes is one day and do that. If it’s at the accomplished and leadership employed. That’s it. Temporary and part time teachers level you would have to apply for whichever level you are part of this as well. Part time teachers get extra preferred to go for. time to actually complete the particular requirements depending if it’s the actual attaining the accreditation Audience Member: You just apply for it? or maintaining it, they do get extra time. For temporary full time teachers, there’s been adjustment to that policy Sue Gazis: You can apply. There’s like a readiness and they’re actually looking at similar to the full time type thing for the higher levels. There’s almost like a teacher. That’s providing they’re at that employment readiness type check list that actually happens and there are referee checks and a whole range of things status throughout the whole period that actually happen and then there’s the actual process Casual teachers do actually have to do some of the of accreditation and that could take up to two years assessment and basically this year was sort of a crunch depending on how you want to go forward with that. time so to speak because it was the final year that they However if you have taught and have been teaching in could get their professional competence accreditation. New South Wales prior to the 1st October 2004 you do Now depending on where the casual teacher’s working, not need to do a thing. You are what’s called an existing in most cases they’ve been able to actually get them a teacher and you do not come under the legislation unless small block where that could be worked out, and where you choose to, even as a temporary teacher. there’s specific individual cases the Institute’s sort of looked at that separately and tried to help the teacher. Audience Member: Sue, with the national curriculum They’ve got things like a teacher evidence diary, called commencing in 2014 will the New South Wales Institute the TED and they can actually log that thing and as of Teachers be relevant any more? they go it’s signed off by the school. If there’s anything particular, if they do a small block, the support material Sue Gazis: Yes it is because we actually implement the for casual teachers has been developed around different national standards. Basically the Act I think may have types of employment that casual teachers get. There’s caused some tension for people and I think it needs some the type of evidence you could accrue from day-to-day definition. A teacher under the Institute of Teachers Act casual teaching. There’s evidence around what might be is defined as someone who’s delivering and assessing accrued through short teaching blocks, and there’s also curriculum as determined by the Board of Studies under evidence for longer teaching blocks. So it’s actually been the Education Act 1990, but basically you could be separated out to try and fine tune and try and help those someone who’s solely responsible for that curriculum. It teachers, but there are people specifically dealing with could be shared responsibility, or it could be the delivery the casual teachers at the Institute now so it’s come a and assessment of a small part of it. That can apply at the competence level, the accomplished level, and long way since day 1. the leadership level. The parts of the Standards that
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actually deal with those curriculum areas, there are a a person taken? Then what is it exactly that they’re few and I’ll show you how that sort of moves around but doing and how does one actually define deliver and before I shift from there are there questions because I assessment of syllabuses? suspect there might be? Audience Member: If you look at that statement both Audience Member: So a Careers Adviser who’s been Careers Advisers and Librarians do deliver content to doing the job for twenty years and has actually had a students. break child rearing or something, and they were doing a Careers job before full time and returning to their Sue Gazis: What I’m saying to you is if you strictly position after whatever time, and they come back in. go along that line that could operate that way, but if Now if they pick up a Careers position full time as an you’re actually supporting students, it might be the existing teacher nothing changes. However, if they Science area around a particular sort of aspect of what’s actually want to be part of the Institute they would need available in terms of the Science industry as such, there are a number of ways in and it’s about how you craft to actually start. the whole show and we’ve had to do a similar thing for Sue Gazis: I think some things need to be teased out Deputies and Principals because they are actually part of there. If they’re coming back, depending on how long the framework and as you know there are a number of the absence has actually been and this goes to the five non-teaching Principals and how we actually deal with year rule, if they come back within a five year period that when they want to be part of the framework. We’ll then there’s no issue. They’re still an existing teacher. talk to you about that because that’s exactly the same They’re not part of the Act. If they come back after a five thing you’d have to do to be part of this. Basically, and year period and there’s been no single day teaching etc. it’s the Standards that allow you to map your way around they do fall under the Act under the returning teacher it, in really broad, broad terms the Standards describe thing. What actually happens is that’s when you need teachers knowledge, practice and commitment across to sort of look at what it is that that Careers Adviser their different Career stages. I think you get that part, is actually doing and it might be that in some cases but the Standards address a range of aspects of teaching they’re actually implementing a Work Studies course and I just pulled out five of them. One being knowledge for the Board. This is when you start looking at what of subject content and that’s where there are a couple the different Standards actually do and it might be that of Standards that say some very specific things about something might actually need to be arranged to deal curriculum and Education Act type of stuff but the rest with the Board of Studies requirements around the actually deal with stuff that I think are quite easy for you Standards. The Institute doesn’t actually specify how to deal with. I think where you’re sensing the difficulty much time is actually spent around those components is around the curriculum area and how you map into and that’s something you need to think through. The that. If you are going for a leadership area it’s about how request for advice actually came around access to you also might craft that what’s going on in a particular leadership positions for the leadership accreditation year for you at your school. Your Principal would have area for Advisers and it can actually be done and we to actually support that accreditation as well. We’re treat all the different specialist areas in a similar sort sort of keen to explore that. We’re having discussions of way except for counsellors who do not come under with the Department so there is clear articulation for you the system at all. They actually come under another as well and we’re looking at an article going into the Act and all those sorts of things. I’ll go through that Careers Advisers’ Journal so it’s quite explicit for you. but basically that’s the guts of it. How much leave has Because I know the angst from the very beginning it just
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makes more sense that you get something in writing too there’s feedback over it and they’ve actually annotated. They should not be creating anything new. If they’re that gives you some sense of confidence as well. not picking it up either off the desk or just printing it off Basically that’s the heart of it. How you actually map one of their files because it’s something they’ve already particular activities for your accreditation, or pieces created, it shouldn’t be manufactured for it. It needs to of evidence if you need that. We’ve found that with be something that’s authentic and so, yes, we do get the Deputies and Principals it’s something we’ve had to really happy let’s create evidence for incredible reasons, do. We’ve got quite a few Principals that have come in but we’ve not actually asked for that. We actually ask for from interstate so they’re new to teaching in New South a snapshot because that’s what’s realistic and generally Wales and what happened at the very beginning there across the seven Standards. What we ask for is at least were no mutual recognition arrangements for those one Standard covered across the evidence. If you can principals. So they had to go through the professional imagine a teaching programme it could actually cover competence process. As much as we hated it, as much evidence across three or four of those seven elements. as they hated it, that’s where the legislation kind of left One piece should actually cover a number of things so us and the way they worked their way around that was there’s a “get real” approach to it. We were having to actually look at small components of actually working people submit boxes of stuff in and you can imagine with a particular curriculum area. It might be that you what the workload would have been like for those work with a particular teacher. It could be the Science teachers and we’ve had to work with different Principals teacher. It could be the Music teacher or whatever, groups etc. just to try and tone the thing down. That’s around Career type things that are relevant to them. not what it’s meant to be. It really is a snapshot in time They do have that in their curriculum areas because and it should actually as a rule of thumb, if it doesn’t fit into that A4 plastic sleeve, don’t inflict it on people. we’ve had to work through some of those scenarios. That’s the bottom line. It’s a snapshot and that’s the We actually accredit teachers in a broad sense. We way it actually operates. That’s for that professional don’t accredit the English teacher, the Careers Adviser, competence area. We’re seeing fairly elaborate stuff and that type of thing. That’s why I’m saying it’s useful coming through for the higher levels at the moment but to have an article that brings in their advice because I because that’s just kick starting off there’s a consistency think that might have been the issue for you. So that’s group that’s actually going to be convened and that will where we’re at with that. That’s how you would actually meet in the New Year. We’ll probably see that further craft this. We’re also trying to work out what some of refined. If anybody is actually creating folders and your questions might be if there are further things that folders of stuff, Yike! Just let us know and we’re happy to talk to them about something that will be a lot easier need to be elaborated for an article for you. for the teachers to deal with, and themselves. With evidence for accreditation, basically what we ask for is, you know those plastic sleeves you get in Audience Member: So if you you’ve been teaching those folders, I know we’ve all gone to computers, but pre-2004 and you want accreditation, what type of if you can imagine that. If it can’t fit into that it’s got information would I need to send in to be accredited? no place. The other thing is a teacher should not have to sit and manufacture bits of paper or evidence for the Sue Gazis: It depends on what level you want to go for? accreditation process. It’s either a learning programme, a unit outline, or whatever that they’ve actually done. Audience Member: The basic first level. It could be a photocopy of a student’s work or where
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Sue Gazis: You would have to go through the process at your school. Whether you register what it is that you do at the school or that type of documentation. It depends on what specifically you actually do. Do you prepare some sort of report around what students do as a Careers Adviser?
go through a full accreditation. Sue Gazis: Basically what’s going to happen under the national system is all States and Territories will recognise each others systems. We have Memorandums of Understanding with all of the States and Territories and I have to check on Queensland.
Audience Member: As individual students, yes. Audience Member: When will that be happening? Sue Gazis: Well that type of stuff. They’re the things that are used and there’s sort of annotation around that. Sue Gazis: We’re looking at 2013. Audience Member: And then you take it where? You Audience Member: You said New South Wales are take it to the person in the school who’s responsible for adopting it in 2014. it and they sign it off, and then what? Sue Gazis: No, you’re thinking national curriculum. Sue Gazis: Depending on which school, if it’s a State School it’s the School Education Director. If it’s a school Audience Member: Aren’t they tied? that’s linked to one of the Catholic Education Offices it goes there. If it’s an Independent school it’s whoever Sue Gazis: No they’re not. It’s all leading to that point the accreditation authority is there. So depending on and I really probably need to just go through this. We’ve who you’re employed with there are different pathways. got teachers who are at professional competence and we’ve just heard someone who’s going to be there pretty Audience Member: I was thinking of moving to soon and what actually happens is they do actually Queensland and I actually rang the Queensland maintain it across every State and Territory. There are Department of Education. They said before I could renewal requirements and they’re pretty much the same. get a teaching number in Queensland I need to get Here the teacher writes a reflection report against accreditation with the Queensland version of you. They the Standards. There’s a professional development said if I’d been teaching more than ten years I would do requirement. It’s one hundred hours. Fifty hours of an online application and they’d give me my teaching registered PD. Fifty hours of what’s called teacher identified, and that could be observations you might number straight away. have, working with industry. A whole range of things Sue Gazis: No. You can do that with us and you’ll get a could be included there. There’s the accreditation fee number straight away. Even in Queensland you do have that’s paid. That’s basically the requirements but across to go through their registration process and you need to each State and Territory it’s pretty much the same. do that within a year and they’ve got their similar types Under the national agreements they’re actually all going for one hundred hours over five years. We’re finding of requirements. most people do more than that and a number of them Audience Member: Even if you’ve been teaching have taken up post-graduate study. We’ve got people in for whatever I’ve been teaching, twenty odd years, thousands of hours and it’s all mapped to the Standards that doesn’t matter? You have to do it differently in a as well. different State. They actually indicated I did not have to
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f you’re an existing teacher I actually think you need to look at where you’re at in life and if it’s something you actually want to do. Some people are thinking about promotion. Some people like that type of recognition. Everybody has different reasons for accessing that and I think you’re the best judge of that. At the same time it’s not something that’s going to be forced on you either. Higher levels accreditation. It does require the teaching and this is where I said earlier you’ll need to craft it, see what the role is. It might be that you work with the TAS teachers or whatever around a particular area that links to their syllabus. Totally up to you but basically we look at the different specialist areas and we have been able to find ways for those groups to actually do this at the higher level. Basically we don’t accredit the position. We actually accredit teachers at the career stages. What happens with Institute registered Professional Development (PD) is Providers apply to us and they become endorsed. We check out their quality assurance processes, how they link to the Standards, that type of thing. They go through an application process. There’s a committee that evaluates all of that and we call for nominations across the teaching profession and there are about eleven people involved in that particular committee, and they’ve been endorsing a whole range of people. There are VET providers. What we’ve done across the different employer groups is also look at how VET in school actually operates. TAFE is also a provider. The TAFE provision is a little bit more difficult in that TAFE has a wide array of courses and what we do is when the teachers contact us we then contact TAFE and arrange for something to actually happen around the registration. Now TAFE is quite fussy about the level that they will register a course at. They’ve agreed to allow the VET in schools training to go through so the Cert. II was an issue for them. They’ve agreed because the VET in schools is actually part of a national training package. It’s a done deal. So that’s just been sorted out this year.
the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leaders (AITSL). Basically their framework looks similar to ours. In fact New South Wales has been heavily involved and taken a fairly lead role in that development. You might find when you look at it they start with knowing the students well. We start with the content and then knowing the students well, so it’s just that things are reversed. There are some Standards that are different. I think there are two Standards that are really really different and there’d be some work around that. We’re finding direct matches with most of it. In some cases a Standard might overlap two of theirs, or two of their Standards overlaps one of ours. So we’re looking at a translation exercise for when we roll over so it’s the same process for teachers. We’ve been looking at what actually looks different for different groups of teachers so the higher levels, that will be going out for consultation and that will finish end of April. AITSL will actually do that so it will be out for a five month consultation period. For the higher levels that won’t actually start using National Standards until after 2013 because, one, they’re not ready. A real big proviso around us actually commencing in 2013, there has to be a lot of support material and support for teachers because it’s a huge undertaking to actually shift something around. At the moment we’ve got that type of commitment and there’s a lot of work happening around support documents and we’ve been doing some of that. Different AITSL people have done that as well. So that will be something that will happen over time. Are there any questions around the National Standards? You were worried about the link to national curriculum. Audience Member: I was just thinking that this lady for example, say she wanted to … if New South Wales doesn’t adopt the national curriculum at the same time as the other States, she’s got buckley’s chance of getting into Queensland because they will say that you haven’t used the stuff that every other State is using. You get what I’m trying to say?
The group that actually created the National Standards is
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Sue Gazis: Yes. The national curriculum is a different thing so I’m not really sure, and Queensland, depending on how quickly it moves into the national curriculum is still to be seen. While a lot of people have said yes, they’re all balking at the moment over support for the national curriculum.
in the Standards. It will be about in the initial teacher education area there’s a national approval process so there’s consistency across all the States and Territories and there are a number of things that we felt were actually problematic with the Act and people have been telling us and we have been trying to address that. So they’re the things that will change but October 2004, no. Audience Member: I guess my point was that the That stays. definition of a teacher was in delivery and assessment In terms of what the National Standards look like, they of a curriculum. are pretty much the same as those in New South Wales. Sue Gazis: For us it’s New South Wales Board of Studies There are three broad domains. Knowledge, Practice course. In the National Standards it’s a lot looser. and Engagement, and then there are seven what we call Because our Act has to be rewritten, in New South elements, in terms of the National Standards they’re Wales the national curriculum is being implemented called Standards. There’s seven broad areas and under with a sort of New South Wales look. In Victoria the that there’s a series of descriptors and basically it’s pretty same thing is happening there. Queensland the same much the same when you start to look at it. There are thing is happening there. So even though you’ve got a couple of really explicit standards around the teaching this broad thing, national curriculum, you’ll find that it’s of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and actually knowing the heritage and that type of thing. being implemented in eight very different ways. We’re probably in a pretty good position to deal with Once we become national our Act has to change and all of that. They were the two that there were more October 2004 will stay where it is. That’s not actually explicit things actually happening. It was expected that going to change. It will be things that are referenced something would happen around that.
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Teach – Make A Difference in NSW Public Schools The Department of Education and Communities (DEC) works closely with Careers Advisors all over the State to provide quality educational outcomes for students. Consequently, they are in the best position to guide students into the rewarding career of teaching in NSW Public Schools. Careers Advisers are also in a crucial position to influence subject selection in years 9, 10, 11 and 12 and help students identify the core subjects they need to enter the degrees that will set them on the path to teaching, making a difference and being role models in their communities. teach.NSW is committed to providing all Careers Advisors with tools and resources to encourage students to pursue challenging and rewarding careers in education. One avenue available to students is the DEC Teacher Education Scholarship. Scholarships of $5000 for each year of study are offered to students undertaking initial Teacher Education training in Maths, Science (Physics), English and Special Education. In addition they also get a one-off $3000 bonus on completion and a guaranteed teaching position in a school in areas they can nominate in Western Sydney, South Western Sydney and non-coastal rural NSW. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students can also study primary teaching or any secondary subject area to qualify for the scholarship. All of our scholarship holders are extremely excited about what the future holds and are very happy with the career path they have chosen. One such recipient is Anne Glynn, a newly appointed English/History Teacher at Forbes High School. Anne was a country girl who followed the path to teaching
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because she believes that everyone has the right to a quality education, regardless of their background. One of her desires is to bridge the gap for students who come from low socioeconomic situations and she has a passion for equality. Anne decided to apply for a scholarship because it offered additional benefits to something that she already wanted to do, which was to teach in the country. The subsidies and financial assistance were a great help to Anne in achieving her goal. When asked about the most rewarding aspect of being a teacher, Anne responded: “I love being able to see progress in the students and know that I am responsible for that. I love having a ‘breakthrough’ and seeing the intrinsic values come out in each student.” The Department of Education and Communities greatly values the support provided by Careers Advisors when identifying and encouraging students to apply for Teacher Education Scholarships. Information about the scholarships and application process is available at www.teach.nsw.edu. au . Please contact teach.NSW directly if you require any additional resources or information to assist further in the already great work that is being done in schools. Call 1300 300 498 (option 1) or email teachnsw@det.nsw.edu.au TeachNSW
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gives you the skills you need for the career you want. Contact your local Institute today.
The TAFE NSW Advantage LET EMPLOYERS KNOW YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES
Our Institutes deliver over 1200 courses in a wide range of subjects.
A TAFE NSW qualification is a nationally recognised qualification and it’s also an indication to employers that you have what it takes to be employable right now. That’s because employers know that TAFE NSW isn’t all about studying and learning theory.
FLEXIBLE STUDY – DO IT YOUR WAY
If you’re studying news journalism, you’ll be writing stories. If it’s beauty therapy, you’ll be doing facials. If it’s veterinary nursing, you’ll be looking after animals. You get the idea, right? TAFE NSW can help you get over the ‘no practical experience, no skills’ hurdle.This is because TAFE NSW is continuously consulting the labour market and identifying the skills employers want. So we make sure we teach you the very skills that are in demand in the workplace.
TAFE NSW INSTITUTES TAFE NSW is made up of 130 campuses grouped into 10 Institutes across Sydney and New South Wales.
At TAFE NSW we offer flexible learning options. If you want to go to TAFE full-time, you can. But if you’re keen to get a job, you can also study part-time – the choice is yours! We also offer online and distance education learning options. A TAFE NSW qualification can provide you with an affordable pathway to university with possible credit towards a degree. And in 2012, you can choose from a range of Bachelor degrees with TAFE NSW!
APPLY FOR RECOGNITION At TAFE NSW we understand that you may have prior learning and experience. For example, you may have previously studied with TAFE, had a voluntary or part-time job, or even done community work. If you can show you’ve already picked up relevant skills and knowledge that can count towards your qualification, you
may be exempt from certain subjects and may be able to finish your course faster.
OUR SUPPORT SERVICES ARE HERE TO HELP YOU When you choose TAFE NSW you know that you won’t be alone in your journey. There’s a range of support services designed to make the student experience enjoyable joyab e a and d productive for you.
BACHELOR DEGREES AT TAFE NSW A TAFE NSW Higher Education degree qualification is a valuable tool for building your career. TAFE NSW currently offers five degree qualifications: • Design (Interior Design) • Early Childhood Education and Care (Birth-5) • 3D Art and Animation • Applied Finance (Financial Planning) • Information Technology (Network Security)
With over 500,000 students each year in Certificate to Bachelor Degree courses, it’s no wonder places at TAFE NSW are filling fast. So what are you waiting for? Accelerate your career and contact your local Institute.
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Follow up Comment on “Jiig-Cal Product Review” in our last Prospects JIIG-CAL Australia is aware of IT issues in schools which are not well resourced. They are releasing the 2012 edition of Career Voyage which can be accessed with iPads and other mobile devices. The re-written code of this program should mean the removal of the problem which may be experienced in schools with narrow bandwidth.
programs aren’t timed, there are often stragglers who need more time to complete. Using their secure login details they can complete the program later, generate individual reports and print them for later discussion with career teachers, parents, etc. Similarly with students who are absent from particular periods, or simply want to do further career research.
Both Career Voyage and Career Compass for 12 – 14 To find out more you can visit the Company website at www.jiig-cal.com.au, or www.careervoyage.com.au, year olds can be accessed over the Web. www.careercompass.com.au, email info@jiig-cal.com. Web access of course has the additional advantage au, or phone 08 9440 5333. of being available anywhere, any time. Because the
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Jiig-Cal Personality & Career Guidance A comment on Personality testing in relation to the are also relevant for career guidance. Career Voyage career decision making tool “… personality tests are so crude that they should, at Why not include personality testing in career best, be treated as research devices …” (page 18). “After comparing three respected and widely used personality development resources such as Career Voyage? tests, two researchers found little evidence that even the It’s a question we’re sometimes asked. The simple best personality tests predict job performance … The answer is that there isn’t much predictive validity in technical deficiencies of such popular tests as Cattell’s using personality factors with career decision making. 16 PF and the MBTI have been known for years. Most That is, knowing a person’s personality attributes really of the Alpha coefficients of internal reliability in the 16 isn’t particularly helpful for his/her career planning. PF fail to reach an acceptable level so testers cannot Consider for example the best researched personality know what they are measuring. The limitations of the dimension of introversion – extraversion in relation to MBTI are well known: The original Jungian concepts any occupation. Take teaching for instance. Can we say are distorted, even contradicted, while studies using the that somebody who is either introverted or extraverted MBTI have neither confirmed the theory nor the measure … That the designers and users of the MBTI claim the should, or should not enter this occupation? test can measure projections from an unconscious mind In fact it could be argued that diversity of personalities is simply embarrassing” (page 20). It is worth reading gives an occupation a richness and depth not possible the rest of Professor Spillane’s article. with homogenous groups. By contrast, the instruments in Career Voyage have There’s an additional issue of validity and reliability of gone through exhaustive testing. Indeed each item personality tests. Technically the concept of validity (or question) has been through a careful item analysis means that a test is measuring what it purports to process to ensure high reliability and validity in relation measure. A maths test for example which uses lots of to career decision making. words may have low validity because it’s also measuring a person’s skill level with the English language. Reliability Bob Bredemeyer - Managing Director, JIIG-CAL Australia on the other hand tells us if a test is giving us the same Suite 7, 45 Cedric Street, Stirling, WA 6021 www.jiig-cal.com.au result each time, ie the margin of error in the test. T: (08) 9440 5333 M: 0417 093 696 One of the criticisms of personality tests is that they have low reliability and low validity. This point is made Eds. note – The views expressed in this article relate to Career starkly by Professor Robert Spillane (Macquarie School Voyage, an excellent analysis tool in its own right. Careers of Management) in the Winter 07 edition of the AACC Advisors select assessment tools for their school on the basis Australian Career Practitioner. Spillane is actually of what the school deems best for their students. The CAA directing criticism at the use of personality testing in the acknowledges that some schools feel personality testing is a management of workers. However many of his points part of their process for assessing students
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Best Practice examples of career development activities from National Career Development Week
CAA NSW & ACT Annual 2011 Conference – Workshop Factsheet
It takes so much work to create any type of event that you want to try to ensure that it is remembered and has an impact that will create a lasting memory. GREAT IDEAS (not always original) + GREAT INFORMATION + FUN ACTIVITIES + THEME/BRANDING + = AN EXPERIENCE An old Chinese Proverb says … Tell me and I’ll forget Show me and I may remember Involve me and I’ll understand! The Karen Penrose RULES of Events: x Identify partners who can also benefit from the activity x Provide information that builds knowledge – work from the end “what do you want your students (parents or other faculty members) to learn?” x Don’t just provide WHAT information (course or industry information, etc) but provide the HOW information (how to make the decision, what should be considered when making a decision about “the next step” and where to get further information x Do pre & post activities (surveys, worksheets, etc) to ensure that students understand what it is about and what outcomes are expected x Don’t reͲcreate the wheel Ͳ use existing resources from reputable sources but remember you can usually make your own alterations to make a resource targeted for your audience x When you adapt an existing resource ALWAYS acknowledge the source and author x ALWAYS request permission to use resources (where appropriate) x Decorate your venue or create a theme – could just be lots of balloons and posters, footprints to your event from a central point, bunting or treasure hunt style clues to create an element of anticipation x Make events multiͲpurpose – run a “have your say” activity to collect opinions (before your event or before & after), combine with a competition and offer prizes, awards or certificates (creates an “Awards” opportunity) x ALWAYS use sponsors, partners branding – eg use Get the life you love Campaign logo to remind your students (and other teachers) that your activity is part of a NATIONAL CAMPAIGN x Make your event FUN x Make your event INTERESTING x Give your event a creative name.
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Campaign News! Looking for National Career Development Week news? Well the most exciting news is that we’ve changed the name of the year-long campaign to the Get the life you love Campaign (including National Career Development Week). This change puts the focus on career development as a year long campaign (Get the life you love Campaign) with a specific celebration week (National Career Development Week). The key message here is that the Get the life you love Campaign supports career development activities and events all year as well as during celebration week – 14 to 20 May 2012!
and Workplace Relations (DEEWR), encourages all Australians to actively engage in career development and to develop the skills to manage their careers, learning, work and lives in order to get the life they love.
National Forums! One of the great new initiatives for the 2012 campaign is that we are running six National Forums. Each Forum is designed to inspire students to aspire to get the life they love through understanding and knowledge of their interests, skills, options and opportunities to make a successful transition into an increasingly complex labour market. The program is hosted in each location by Steve Liebmann (Journalist and TV Host) and features three high profile Guest Speakers along with six local young people with inspiring career stories who are interviewed by Steve.
But the name is the only change - we still provide you with fantastic free career development resources at Two Forums were held late 2011 (Gold Coast – 230 www.getthelifeyoulove.com.au (and if it’s easier for you students from eight schools and Mt Gambier – 550 students from 6 schools) and the Team are currently busy www.ncdw.com.au still works as well!). organising Forums in Port Macquarie and Launceston So what is the Get the life you love Campaign with Darwin and Perth later in the year. (including National Career Development Week)? But you’re asking yourself (unless you are coming to Port The Get the life you love Campaign (including National Macquarie) “how does that help me?” Well the good Career Development Week) is a national campaign that news is that not only do we put the Forum Template, provides the encouragement, resources and support to Program and Worksheets on the website for you to use, assist anyone to organise a careers event or activity in we film each Forum and have developed a series of videos “The Get the life you love Speaker Series” which their school, organisation or community. are all located on our YouTube Channel AusCareerWeek The Get the life you love Campaign, an initiative of (http://www.youtube.com/auscareerweek) for you to the Career Industry Council of Australia (CICA) with play for your students. support from the Department of Education, Employment
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Speakers you can watch on the Get the life you love Resources! Website resources for you to use with your students Speaker Series include: include thirteen student Career Factsheets (covering various topics from Choosing subjects and courses, • Steve Liebmann (Journalist and TV Host) Parents as Career Coaches, Careers Expo Resources); • Eddie McGuire (TV, radio and media personality) videos (25 career development message videos on our • David Wirrpanda (retired AFL player and Director, YouTube Channel – AusCareerWeek); Downloadable Wirrapanda Foundation) Chatterbox activities (for younger students) and links to useful websites. • Preston Campbell (retired NRL player) • •
Courtney Hancock (Australian National Ironwoman And to help you organise a career development event and 2011 Series Titleholder) or activity there are Event ideas and How to Templates. Soul Mystique (international Quick-change Artists, one of the World’s top 10 magic acts, finalist 2011 Why not send a Factsheet home each month with your Entertainer of the year, Australian Tourism Awards) school newsletter?
•
Michael Lynch (Builder and winner 2011 Network Event Registrations! Ten Renovators) Have you registered your events for 2012? It’s not too • Emilio de Stefano (Hardware Engineer, BAE late. To get registered just select the Register Your Systems) Events Tab on our website. Once registered, you’ll be • Kate Southam (Editor CareerOne). able to use all the resources on the website to assist you to run a successful career development activity and you’ll Play these videos to your students for inspirational receive the free Event Kit which includes merchandise messages like: “If it’s meant to be – it’s up to me” Eddie for you to give away at your event. McGuire For more information and to register your careers event “Good luck is when years of preparation meet with one go to www.getthelifeyoulove.com.au or contact Karen moment of opportunity … If you do today what others Penrose (Project Director) on (07) 5530-8990 or email are doing then you will be competitive, but if you do karen.penrose@cica.org.au today what others are doing tomorrow then you will be a winner!” Courtney Hancock Former Gold Coast Titans player, Preston Campbell said his career experience had taught him that... “If you don’t take a chance - you’ll never know! ... No matter what you have to deal with or where you grow up - you can achieve anything as long as you put in the effort.”
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NSW & ACT
Book Review The Learning Edge: What Technology can do to Educate all Children (Technology, Education - Connections Series) by Alan Bain and Mark E. Weston, Teachers College Press, 2012. After billions of dollars, thousands of studies, and immeasurable effort by educators at all levels, why is the performance of students and teachers so unaffected by technology?
“The approaches we present in The Learning Edge are grounded in over 20 years of experience working with classroom teachers, school leaders, association members, and policymakers.
Teachers from all backgrounds will appreciate a new book that provides research-based evidence for how the widespread application of ICT can provide powerful learning opportunities that lead to lasting gains and achievement.
“We include vignettes of classrooms and schools that are successfully using technology across the curriculum, and provide a solutions-oriented presentation, including practical examples of alternative courses of action at all levels of the education system. Key ideas are summarised in a section at the end of each chapter.”
The book, The Learning Edge: What technology can do to educate all children, is co-authored by Associate Professor Alan Bain, a lecturer at Charles Sturt University’s (CSU) School of Teacher Education in Bathurst, and Mr Mark E Weston, a global education strategist at Dell Inc. in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Professor Bain said their investigation and analysis started by asking, why is the performance of students and teachers so unaffected by technology? “More to the point, we asked what should be done to extract genuine benefit from the information and communication technology (ICT) revolution,” Professor Bain said. “We show how, by giving all educational stakeholders powerful problem-solving tools and solutions, the integrated use of technology at all levels of the educational system can greatly expand collaborative learning opportunities.
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John Hattie, director, Melbourne Education Research Institute, University of Melbourne, and author of Visible Learning wrote: “Bain and Weston show that when teachers ‘perceive’ technologies as part of their teaching and part of students learning there can be greater gains to both surface and deep understanding. These stories are compelling reading and they lead to a ‘why not do it here’ sense for me as the reader.” The Learning Edge: What technology can do to educate all children is published by Teachers College Press at Columbia University, New York. Review received from Charles Sturt University Peita Vincent Manager, Communication (Media Relations and Advertising) | Division of Marketing
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CSU supports
CareerS adviSerS
At Charles Sturt University (CSU) we value our strong relationships with careers advisers and work with them to ensure students have access to the information they need. We have Prospective Student Advisers (PSAs) at our Albury-Wodonga, Bathurst, Orange and Wagga Wagga campuses who can provide information about courses, entry requirements, pathways to university study, events on campus and much more. Another PSA in Sydney provides information to schools and students in the metropolitan area. These services are complemented by events on campus such as MyDay, which gives students a taste of university life in their chosen field, or the open day every day campus tour program. CSU supports careers advisers by offering:
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two mailouts each year to schools, including a package of our prospectuses, publications and supporting materials
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easy ordering of publications that provide clear and concise information about courses, events and support programs
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a free call number to speak to a Student Recruitment Adviser about any specific questions
• information about programs such as the Principal’s Report Entry Program (PREP) or Regional Bonus Points to help non-metropolitan students gain entry to their chosen course.
CSU also hosts the Regional Careers Conference, providing a valuable professional development and networking opportunity for careers advisers.
Meet our Prospective Student Advisers: Albury-Wodonga PSA Emily Hill
Bathurst PSA Fran Dwyer
Sydney PSA Lauren Sparkes
Wagga Wagga PSA Andrew Connell
Orange PSA Rebecca Morgan
1800 334 733
www.csu.edu.au/for/career-advisers F2184A
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2012 Careers Adviser Networks Canberra Ms Suzanne Rentsch Radford College Phone: 61626200 suzanne.rentsch@radford.act.edu.au
Lower North Coast Mrs Linda Drenkhahn GLC - Tuncurry Senior Campus Phone: 65550513 linda.drenkhahn@det.nsw.edu.au
South Coast / South East Mr Mike Dent Moruya High School Phone: 44742155 Michael.dent@det.nsw.edu.au
Central Coast Ms Sara Cutting Kariong Mountains High School Phone: 43400246 sara.cutting@det.nsw.edu.au
Macarthur Mr Philip Warwick Campbelltown Performing Arts High School Phone: 46251403 philip.warwick@det.nsw.edu.au
Southern Highlands / Tablelands Contact Person Unknown Phone:
Central West Mr Ron Stinson Blayney High School Phone: 63682100 ronald.stinson@det.nsw.edu.au
Maitland & Upper Hunter Ms Jennifer Dempsey Francis Greenway High School Phone: 49641282 jennifer.dempsey@det.nsw.edu.au
Coffs Harbour & Clarence Districts Mr Kim Harland Orara High School Phone: 66521077 Kim.Harland@det.nsw.edu.au
Metropolitan North Ms Kim Mahoney The Hills Grammar School Phone: 96545310 Kim.Mahoney@hillsgrammar.nsw.edu.au
Cumberland Careers Forum Mrs Tina Fisher Crestwood High School Phone: 96397422 Christina.Fisher@det.nsw.edu.au
Nepean Forum Mr Ian Palmer Blue Mts, Hawkesbury and Penrith Schools Industry Partnership Phone: 47250310 ian@schoolsindustry.com.au
Eastern Suburbs Contact Person Unknown Phone: Far North Coast (Tweed / Byron) Mrs Glenys Lawson Murwillumbah High School Phone: 66721566 glenys.lawson@det.nsw.edu.au Illawarra Mr Simon King Illawarra Sports High School Phone: 42711099 illawaspor-h.school@det.nsw.edu.au Liverpool / Fairfield Ms Wendy Byrne Vocational Education Consultant, DET Phone: 88484931 wendy.byrne@det.nsw.edu.au
New England / North West Region Ms Belinda Pine Phone: belinda.pine1@det.nsw.edu.au Newcastle & Hunter Ms Helen Wilks San Clemente High School Phone: 0409326961 helen.wilks@mn.catholic.edu.au Outback Riverina Ms Mandy McConnell Barham High School Phone: 03 54532322 mandy.mcconnell1@det.nsw.edu.au Port Jackson District Contact Person Unknown Phone:
St George Mr Arthur Zigas Kingsgrove North High School Phone: 95023933 arthur.zigas@det.nsw.edu.au Summerland (Ballina, Lismore, Casino) Mr Bill Goldie Lismore High School Phone: 66215185 william.goldie@det.nsw.edu.au Tamworth District Mr Robert Arranz Farrer Memorial Agricultural High School Phone: 67648621 robert.arranz@det.nsw.edu.au Wagga Wagga Ms Anne Fellows Wagga Wagga High School Phone: 69253611 annie.fellows@wwhs.com.au Western Plains Mrs Caroline Watts Dubbo College - Senior Campus Phone: 68824655 caroline.watts@det.nsw.edu.au