Pandemic helps steer students

Words by: Anne Lee L incoln University is enjoying a surge in interest from prospective Kiwi students eyeing opportunities in the agri, food and fibre sectors. As one of the few positive spinoffs from the global pandemic there’s been heightened recognition of the sectors’ vital roles in New Zealand.

Lincoln University deputy vicechancellor Grant Edwards says through the Covid-19 experience it’s become clear agri, food and fibre will take an important lead in NZ’s economic recovery and it’s creating exciting opportunities for both school leavers and career changers.

The role agriculture and supporting industries will play in spearheading environmental improvements has also been highlighted with opportunities booming across the whole spectrum of the sector from boots-on farmers, industry support, agribusiness, science and research.

“There’s a lot of positive activity in all of those areas and they hold exciting prospects,” he says.

And Kiwis are seeing that.

Lincoln University agribusiness and commerce faculty dean Hugh Bigsby says domestic student applications for some degrees are up 30% on where they were at the same time last year.

“Students have choices so it’s great to see more of them choosing to enrol in applied science and applied commerce degrees related to the agri sectors.”

Diploma course enrolments have increased with the Diplomas in Agriculture, Farm Management, Horticulture and Hort management included in the government’s targeted training and apprenticeship fund that means free fees for course costs.

Applications across all courses are coming from both school leavers and potential career changers made redundant.

The combination of limited or no travel over the coming year means overseas gap years are likely off the table and tough economic times may make it harder for school leavers to find jobs. Just as students

and the workforce are having to pivot, so too is the university. Covid-19 lockdowns and alert levels saw the university move to fully online learning during alert levels four and three with some opportunity for face-to-face learning in tutorials and labs during alert level two.

At level one face-to-face learning is back but online learning remains an option.

“The university has made a very significant investment in online technology so students can study wherever they are if they can’t get to university,” Grant says.

“We’re also making available a Certificate of University Studies online as a bridge from secondary school or the workforce to help people into university.”

A combination of free-fees for taught postgraduate degrees until the end of 2021 and online availability has boosted interest from New Zealanders in post-graduate studies too with enrolments jumping from just 11 Kiwis in the master of business course in 2019 to 86 in 2020. Hugh says part of this growth is because they’ve also packaged up a number of core foundation courses common to a number of businessrelated masters degrees offered at the university and rolled them into an online Post Graduate Certificate in Commerce.

“It’s 60 credits and a semester worth of courses so people can either stop at one semester with a qualification or use it towards their masters degree,” he says.

Several new courses will be available online in 2021, including a new Diploma in Horticultural Business, modelled on a programme the university has been collaborating on with the University of Tasmania. While the increase in domestic

Attendees at a Lincoln University field day.

student numbers will go some way to making up for numbers lost through the closure of NZ’s border, Grant says the financial impact of losing international students will certainly be felt.

“There’s the impact on the university’s revenue but we’re also losing research work that would have been carried out by those international postgraduates that’s highly valuable to New Zealand.

“A number of those international students would have gone on to be employed in our agri, food and fibre sector as well as the research community including our crown research institutes,” he says.

As well as stopping students coming in, Covid-19 is stopping NZ students travelling.

“We’re a globally connected university and it’s important that we keep up those global connections.

“Last year we took 75 students offshore on five different trips to Indonesia, Thailand, China, South Korea and Brazil looking at import/export opportunities and connecting with universities to develop joint programmes,” Hugh says.

Lincoln, like other universities, wants to see borders opened to international students providing it can be done safely.

But with that looking less likely before next semester the university is working on creating systems so postgraduate students can start their enrolment process while still overseas and begin their studies.

“We have to be careful though that we don’t put the students at risk of getting to a point where they can’t carry on their studies because they can’t get to our campus,” Grant says.