www.fica.org.nz
Bring Forestry Back to School Curriculum Prue Younger, CEO Message Some 20 years ago there was an industry initiative, the Forest Insights Project, developed to promote the forest industry, science, processing, environment, and research to provide resource materials to every school in the country. Some of you may remember them, they took the form of resource boxes for each of five levels of schooling, juniors, standards, intermediate, lower, and upper secondary and were provided free of charge, compliments of the industry. The project was widely sponsored by forestry companies, forest owners, wood industries and FITEC, the ITO predecessor to Competenz and content was prepared by teachers for teachers. Unfortunately, the specific nature of some of the contact points, processes etc dated easily, content did not have an extended life cycle and required regular updating to remain current. Also, hardcopy was in the process of being superseded by online technology. Much of the general forestry content has not dated however but could still provide valuable reference using a great concept. The themes and content could and should be used as a base for programme development however, it is likely that most schools would have disposed of their resource boxes by now. FICA in conjunction with funding support from the Te Uru Rakau - 1BT Partnership Grant engaged with schools this year to ascertain just how much forestry education was being included in the curriculum these days and how we could appropriate resources to bring it back. The investigation was carried out by a consultant and a final report compiled. As an overview, most high schools tend to be offering options for practically orientated students in Primary Industries, ‘trades’ and Construction without major focus on forestry and those high schools that offer specific forestry training generally have sound industry input to their programmes and a champion within their school. There are no teaching resources available specifically to attract teachers who may want to establish a forestry programme in their school. It would be ideal to think forestry education and
training in High Schools could be used as a recruitment means to employment. What we did find though was that recruitment would be enhanced if careers, entry points, training options, scholarships available and teaching resources were assembled in one place but with clear separation between categories. The discovery learning (‘constructivism’) approach to student learning, put up by Tauhara College has wider application to attract students to forestry (and other sectors). Our observations were there is a wide range of careers, recruitment, and training information available on websites, but this appears to be largely uncoordinated via any single industry agency. Wood Council sites show regional features presented without any standardisation but have the potential to be a focal resource for careers and recruitment. There also could be better organisation and presentation of information on the availability of grants and scholarships. The costs of various agencies creating resources and maintaining websites could be centralised and should be mitigated through some form of coordinated approach. This final report highlights that there has not been much movement in high school forestry training programmes in the last ten years or more. Programmes would do better if they emphasised machines and machine operating as a major skill set which put our learners closer to our change in technology and mechanisation. This offers the opportunity to provide more focus on these skills in addition to the traditional core introductory skills. The wide range of information sources and web sites demands alignment and a process for best presentation and sharing and coordination in these areas would make better uses of funding sources. A singular objective around taking an industry unified approach to linking school learning programmes to forestry recruitment, through courses such as the ‘Generation Programme’, would benefit both industry and jobseekers.
