PHOTO: The NSW Department of Education has confirmed that agriculture-related subjects will only be available to Years 7 & 8 at Coonamble High School in the coming school year but that the School Farm [above] will be maintained. The school’s Bovine Appreciation Club has also been suspended.
How has it come to this?
The NSW Education Department has confirmed that there will be no elective or higher school certificate agriculture classes at Coonamble High School in 2024.
While the school has declined to comment, the NSW Education Department initially advised that the decision was spurred by lack of available staff but has since confirmed that a decline in student interest is behind the decision not to run ag-related classes from Years 9 to 12 for the next school year.
A ‘spokesperson for the department’ advised that that Agriculture and Primary Industry were offered as electives for Years 9 and 10 students and Agriculture for Years 11 and 12 for the 2024 school year at Coonamble High School.
However, due to insufficient student interest in these subjects there will not be a class in these subjects next year.
The course will again be offered as part of the 2025 subject selection options.
The department has also advised that if enrolment numbers for the elective are low, students have the option to take agriculture as an elective through Aurora College, which provides distance education primarily through a combination of online learning.
NSW is the only state where agriculture is part of compulsory Food and Design Technology subjects in years 7 and 8 so this means that only years 9 to 12 are affected next year.
Although parents contacted say they have not yet been officially informed they have expressed high levels of concern about the impacts on students and the community.
“It affects [my son], who primarily wanted to do ag through the rest of his schooling in year 10, 11 and 12,” one parent told the Coonamble Times. “He would have done a subject selection already and included at least one ag-related subject.”
“I know there’s no ag teacher – this semester he had a stand-in teacher doing it with no ag experience at all.
“It’s devastating for our community because so many kids are ag focused.”
One mother said she was now investigating boarding school as an alternative for her daughter, who is interested not so much in agriculture but in another animal-based career.
“If there’s not going to be ag there’s no option for her,” she told the Coonamble Times.
Another said that it probably signalled an early exit from school for her child.
“My daughter is pretty shattered … She’s devastated,” they said.
“It could well be the cause of her not continuing.”
“It’s a huge loss of option, she had her Year 12 subjects worked out and can only do one.”
It is not just the lack of ag-related classes but also the loss of the highly-successful Bovine Appreciation Club – traditionally managed by the agriculture teacher – which parents say is a blow.
“It was a bit of a shock,” said one parent.
“When something is gone it can be really difficult to get it back.
“We live in an ag community, that’s what keeps a lot of the rural kids here.”
“Kids had to be attending and behaving at school to be able to go on the BAC trips so it kept a lot of the kids at school,” they explained.
“It’s all going to go to waste – years of hard work for kids current and previous. That reputation they had for the standard they reached and it’s just out the window.
“I’m still at a loss as to why.”
Be it lack of student interest or lack of qualified teaching staff, a year without agriculture in the local high school has stirred discussion across the wider community at a time when sustaining the workforce is a major priority for the industry.
Agriculture is a major source of jobs right across rural and regional Australia from labourers to degree-qualified science graduates.
While the school-based agriculture curriculum still sets the groundwork for the next generation of farmers, 60 to 70 percent of the jobs in agriculture in Australia are now off-farm.
In the Coonamble Shire, around 30% of the local workforce is engaged directly in agriculture, with many more sectors such as transport and construction, also heavily reliant on the industry.
According to the last Census in 2021, 29.4% of all employed people worked in agriculture, compared to 11.7% across the Orana region and just 2.1% in NSW.
Since then, the demand for ag workers has skyrocketed.
The federal government says one of the biggest priorities for the agriculture industry is securing an appropriate workforce. All levels of government are investing in programs that support the agricultural industry to better skill, attract, protect, and retain its workforce.
The Education Department has confirmed that the School Farm in King Street will continue to be maintained during 2024.