LEADERS from the Muresk Institute and the Department of Training and Workforce Development (DTWD) are confident Curtin University’s new agribusiness degree flagged for the Muresk campus in 2019 will meet industry expectations.
A new 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) following low enrolment numbers.
The new associate degree will be a pathway to the three-year Bachelor of Agribusiness degree offered at Curtin.
CSU’s BABM has been on offer through Central Regional TAFE (CRT) at Muresk since 2014 and was introduced after Curtin moved its Bachelor of Agribusiness degree to its Bentley campus in 2012.
Since the announcement, concerns have been raised that Curtin’s new two-year degree will not meet industry requirements to the same level as the three-year BABM course.
The BABM degree meets level seven criteria on the Australian Qualification Framework levels, while Curtin’s new associate degree will be rated a level six.
However, Muresk Institute general manager Prue Jenkins believes the Curtin degree would be well-suited to the Muresk campus.
“If you go back on the history of Muresk – the early days – it was actually the diploma-level training that really hit the mark with industry and certainly from our ongoing consultation with industry, that’s where the market is,” Ms Jenkins said.
“Industry has really directed the way that learning needs to happen and that’s what we’ve responded to – there’s less demand for those two and three-year courses, although the demand is still there.”
Ms Jenkins said Muresk would be involved in creating the course outline for the associate degree.
She expected the course to be taught face to face at Muresk with a high level of practical exposure and opportunities for work experience.
Ms Jenkins said Curtin would establish a distributed learning centre at the Muresk campus, which could lead to the university expanding its offering to include teaching part of its Bachelor of Agribusiness at Muresk.
Curtin University vice-chancellor Deborah Terry said industry consultation would continue into next year, before the final course outline was complete in mid-2018.
“The delivery methodology will accommodate a variety of learning needs, and will provide flexibility through a mix of face-to-face teaching and the use of technology,” Ms Terry said.
“Curtin has been receiving forward looking and positive feedback in general from stakeholders about its decision to offer the associate degree at Muresk, any concerns that are raised during the consultation process will be considered and where possible, appropriately addressed.”
MOCA secretary John Kargotich said industry and the association had several concerns about the content and structure of the new course, and hoped the consultation process with industry was thorough.
Mr Kargotich said a Tertiary Education Reference Group had been established within MOCA to address the “issues of process and content which determine what is taught” in proposed courses such as Curtin’s new associate degree.
DTWD executive director service resource management Russell Brown said the department was looking at the big picture, and while a bachelor degree was beneficial to the Muresk Institute, vocational level training would play a more important role.
“In terms of the business of Muresk – that (BABM) has accounted for 4 per cent of our revenue, it gives you a picture of it’s scale and its size within here,” Mr Brown said.
“People are being so focused - there must be a degree - we agree it’s great to have higher education at Muresk, but that’s only part of the story.”
