Customer stories
Driver Training for Farming Career Switch
13 Aug 2020
The students get two
weeks training at Telford’s training site and a further two weeks of training
with Richardson Group, where they also drive trucks as well as tractors.
Case IH dealership
Agricentre South has loaned Telford three tractors for the training while Chris
Hughes from Hughes Contracting has provided two trainers. After two weeks with
Richardson Group the students have a two-week work placement.
Agricentre South saw
the initiative as a great for their community involvement in the Southland
Youth Futures programme, which the dealership joined as a founding member. Case
IH sales manager Richard Clapperton said supporting the Agricultural Contractor
course was a natural way to promote the primary sector to Southland students.
“We see it as a responsibility for businesses like us to promote this sector as
a great opportunity to build a successful and rewarding career,” he said.
The Case IH machines
give students experience with a variety of vehicles: a CVT, a full powershift
and a semi powershift, range-change powershift.
Telford tutoring
co-ordinator, John Hughes, said some trainees in the Ministry for Primary
Industries-funded course already had good basic knowledge “but we lift them up
a couple of levels.”
The driving starts with
gentle drives up and down driveways, progressing to practical skills tied to
NZQA student standards, like credits for machinery health and safety. Depending
on a trainees’ licence class, they can go on to learn feed management and road
safety, for example.
Tutoring caters to
existing skill level, Hughes said. “If their skill level is up, then they
become peer support for the ones who aren’t there yet. So, you’re trying to
lift everyone up from wherever they are at.”
Hughes, a long-time
machinery contractor, is a former national president of the industry body,
Rural Contractors New Zealand. He hopes
Telford can serve as a template for similar training in the North Island.
However it’s done, it must be thorough. “You can’t do this thing and have them
well assessed, competent and safe to drive in a week or 10 days,” he said.
Telford has 18 to 20
students at any one time. In some cases, trainees have found work before
completing the course, including a few who found work in original jobs, like
tourism or hospitality.
It was satisfying
seeing trainees learn skills for a lifetime and the course is a reminder of
agriculture’s value to the country, Hughes said.
Graduates are assessed
and placed in jobs on a trial basis. “There’s a template here and our first
working intake is now out in job placement. But placement’s no guarantee of
getting a job; what we’re about is getting people together with these trainees
and seeing if they suit each other – and if they cut the mustard. And if it
works, they get a job offer.”
Some of Telford’s
students have had a tough time since losing work in the Covid-19 economic slump. The first intake really felt that pain. “They
were guinea pigs for us a bit. You had to realise that they’d been through a
bit of trauma. But they’re more than grateful; they see the opportunity that
has just jumped out.”
Some of the trainees
are foreigners who came to New Zealand on visas for other work, but who are now
eyeing careers in agriculture. “If we can get anyone into, not just into
agricultural contracting but into rural machinery operation and farming, then
it’s going to help,” Hughes said.
For many, practical
training like this could serve a student better than, say, a university degree.
“That degree might be something they never use. Why don’t they get trained in
the agricultural sector?”
In farming, nothing
beats on-the-job learning. “Personally, I find you can have certificates and
diplomas up the boowai, but if they can’t do the job, then they can have as
much as they like on their CV.”
It was satisfying
seeing trainees learn skills for a lifetime and the course is a reminder of
agriculture’s value to the country, Hughes said.
Farming is New
Zealand’s bread and butter, so comprehensive heavy-vehicle training for farming
and other industry is essential, he says. “What didn’t change when Covid hit?
The rural sector didn’t change. We’re seeing the opportunities here and I think
it needs to bed in. It’s one of those catalysts for changing the mindset of
secondary schools and training institutions,” he said.
Download Word Document
Download Image
Download Zip archive