Longy interest continues to grow

BY ABBY WALTER

Longerenong College is gearing up to welcome a new cohort of students, with enrolments filling fast.

General manager Avril Hogan said after introducing early acceptance to the college’s enrolment processes, half of its availabile student places were full before Christmas.

“We opened early enrolments for the first time, which meant students knew if they had a place before the middle of January, since we didn’t have to wait for their ATAR scores,” she said.

“What we’re trying to do now is encourage anyone who is thinking about coming onboard to enrol — because the worry is that you decide to come to Longerenong College and we don’t have enough spots.

“We will continue to offer early enrolments in future years because if we are ‘plan-A’ for a student, we don’t want them to have to worry about coming up with a ‘plan-B’ or ‘plan-C’ just because they haven’t heard from us.”

Ms Hogan said she encouraged people wanting to study agriculture to apply to Longerenong College – no matter their background. “The 2022 year was the first year we had more women than men come through the college, with 57 percent of enrolment inquiry coming from women,” she said.

“It’s looking similar or higher than that again for 2023, so we’ll wait and see if more men come through or if it will be a 60 to 40 percent split as it looks now.”

Family connections

Angus Hawkins of Minimay is one of more than 15 members of his family to seek further education at Longerenong College and is also one of many incoming 2023 students. He will study an Advanced

Diploma of Agriculture and Agribusiness Management.

“It’s going to be good. It’s going to be worthwhile to get some experience before eventually looking to head back to my family farm,” he said.

“I knew I needed to do some

Mr Hawkins said agriculture was his passion.

“I looked at a lot of universities and agriculture colleges,” he said.

“It’s good here at Longy because it’s close to home and focuses on the skills you need to go forward and it’s where I can start to go on and keep improving in this field.

“If you can’t do it yourself, or know how the system works, it’s hard to run a farm.”

Mr Hawkins said he could not pinpoint what he looked forward to most about studying in 2023.

“I’m open-minded towards everything we will do and study. It’s going to all be pretty good and I’m looking forward to being a part of it,” he said.

“Our family hasn’t only been to Longerenong College. My family members have been to different universities and agriculture colleges over the time, but I think it shows we have the same passions.”

Housing growth

Ms Hogan said a new accommodation project was helping to ensure there would be houses will be available next year, so we will have extra spots for students to live and study,” she said.

“One of our limitations is not having enough spaces for students to live here.

“The accommodation project includes three seven-bedroom houses and three four-bedroom houses, with all of them to be ready by the end of this year.”

Ms Hogan said the year ahead appeared positive.

“Agriculture is so hot right now and people can’t get enough workers across the industry, regardless of the qualifications or experience that’s needed,” she said.

“It’s such an exciting time for students to get trained and go and work in agriculture — we’ve never seen it better than this.

“We have an operating farm, so students are learning in the classroom and applying that on the farm. They get to do handson skills so that helps lock in their knowledge.

“We’re pumped that students are still considering Longerenong as it is one of the oldest agriculture training in-