THE Muresk Old Collegians’ Association (MOCA) says there remains more questions than answers after it met with officials from Curtin University to discuss the new agribusiness associate degree planned for the Muresk campus in 2019.
The two-year associate degree was announced in August when the State government confirmed it would stop providing supplementary funding to support Muresk’s three-year Charles Sturt University (CSU) Bachelor of Agricultural Business Management (BABM) course due to low enrolment numbers.
The new associate degree will be a pathway to the three-year Bachelor of Agribusiness degree offered at Curtin.
The announcement was met with a mixed response from the WA agriculture sector, with concerns that Curtin’s new two-year degree would not meet industry requirements to the same level as the three-year BABM course.
Curtin University vice-chancellor Professor Deborah Terry said the meeting was organised with the MOCA delegation to “seek the MOCA representatives’ views on the plans for the new course and on how to ensure that the course development includes an effective consultation process”.
Ms Terry said the university provided an overview of plans for the associate degree to those at the meeting.
“There will be several entry pathways into the course, including at least one designed to accommodate students who have the relevant background knowledge, perhaps obtained at an agriculture college, but who do not have an ATAR (Australian Tertiary Admission Rank),” Ms Terry said.
“Graduates of the associate degree will have the option of enrolling into the Bachelor of Agribusiness with up to 300 credit points.
“It needs to be a valued standalone program for its graduates and their potential employers.”
Ms Terry said the official consultation process would start in February, 2018 and would “involve a full range of stakeholders”.
“The preliminary list includes employers from a broad range of areas associated with agribusiness including in agricultural production, business and consulting, machinery, protection, agronomy and government,” Ms Terry said.
“It will also seek input from school principals.”
She said course information would be finalised by mid-2018, and appear in the Tertiary Institutions Service Centre (TISC) handbook in August 2018.
MOCA spokesperson on agribusiness tertiary education Peter Lee said the meeting was frustrating and left the MOCA delegation with several concerns.
He said MOCA was unsure as to why the university was developing a “TAFE- type” course at Muresk instead of a university level degree.
“We went in with questions and we came out of the meeting with more questions,” Mr Lee said.
“They want an associate degree but we’re saying it’s not a university’s job, why don’t you do something a university does instead of doing something a TAFE does?”
Mr Lee said MOCA also had concerns the university would only provide 300 credits for students who go on to enrol in the bachelor degree at Curtin, which requires 600 credit points to be completed.
He said it was unclear how Curtin had determined this if it was yet to finalise the course outline for the associate degree.
“Only three semesters will be good enough to go into the university course, but they haven’t designed the course yet so how the hell do we know and how the hell do they know more to the point,” Mr Lee said.
“They either know exactly and they’re not telling or they haven’t a clue what’s going on.”
Mr Lee said it was unclear if MOCA would be involved in any ongoing consultation for the construction of the course, but hoped the process was thorough and involved appropriate stakeholders.
