Public schools in the smaller regional communities of the Central West are taking a co-ordinated approach to helping local students develop skills in agriculture.
These smaller local schools do not have the resources individually to provide students with training, but when they all join together they can achieve a lot.
For the past four years the Western Access Program has partnered with the Department of Primary Industries to deliver training through the annual assessment day at Trangie Agricultural Research Centre (TARC).
TARC farm staff, along with Tocal College, have been assisting local high school students studying Primary Industries achieve competencies in livestock handling and husbandry.
This year, eight senior secondary students from Tottenham, Trundle, Tullamore, Trangie, Peak Hill and Yeoval, all with differing skill sets and experiences, attended TARC for a day of animal handling and husbandry exercises for both sheep and cattle.
Certificate II Primary Industries units dictate that competency should be assessed using a mob of 50 or more head of both sheep and cattle.
Given that the majority of these schools are lucky to have 50 students, there was no chance for them to undertake the assessment without using a facility such as TARC.
The day started with emphasis being placed on maintaining a safe work place introducing the ‘Take 2’ process of risk assessment used at TARC.
This set the scene for the day as students were then involved in assessing and documenting risks identified in the sheep yards, wool sheds and cattle yards before animals were used for demonstrations.
Personal Protective Equipment and safe chemical use/storage were topics of discussion and demonstration.
These included the reading of labels and Safety Data Sheets to determine such things as dose rate, export slaughter interval, batch number and expiry date, and with-holding period.
Students then calibrated husbandry equipment to ensure correct application rate and proceeded to back-line animals (with water only) for their assessment.
Students were involved in assessment with livestock that included mustering into yards, drafting, weighing, back-lining, catch and cast sheep and visual health checks.
They were monitored for the way in which they read the animals behaviour in the yards and using low stress stock handling techniques that had been demonstrated and practised during the day to mitigate risk of injury to both the handler and animal.
This is a great example of regional communities and the public sector working together to share resources and expertise to provide opportunities for students.
These students would not otherwise have been able to undertake this training and achieve a qualification which will help them on the way to a career in agriculture.
Particular thanks go to Department of Education Western Access Program, the management and staff of DPI and TARC for delivering this collaborative training.
Everyone involved is looking forward to these students completing their studies and pursuing a career in the agricultural industry in the near future.
