WHAT IS A WELL TRAINED HORTICULTURAL EMPLOYEE?

Some employers want all their staff to hold qualifications, and others tell me “qualified” employees are incompetent and lack the willingness to learn. Horticultural education in Australia has become a mess over recent decades; politicised, and driven by enterprises (public and private) who are more preoccupied with passing audits and making money than with providing effective learning. People who know little about the psychology of learning now make decisions, while teachers who have studied education for years are no longer given the power to practice what they studied.
The industry today is overrun by myths and misunderstandings about horticultural education, and employers, students and parents have developed skewed ideas about what education is, or should be.

How things have changed?

When I started my horticultural career, I had only two options for becoming qualified:

1. A Diploma in Horticultural Science at Burnley Horticultural College: 4000+ hours of study, 7 days a fortnight in the classroom, 3 days hands on work rotating through gardens, nursery, mechanics and carpentry workshops, orchard and vegetable plots. We studied sciences as well as horticulture, and were expected to be able to identify over 2,000 plant species.
Or,

2. A Gardening Apprenticeship which involved close to 1000 hrs in a classroom plus 4 years of on the job work under direct supervision of someone who had completed a similar apprenticeship, or something better.
When I graduated with a Burnley Diploma, we were told we could be a “gardening assistant”, and if we worked hard, maybe a “horticulturist” a few years later. Today graduates emerge from very short courses, with little knowledge and much higher expectations of what they can do than anyone had in the 70’s.

I have seen people with certificates and diplomas only 6 to 12 months after leaving high school. This would not have happened in the 1960’s and 70’s.
The knowledge and skills of today’s graduates are not predictable as they once were. Informed employers will quiz job applicants on what they know, rather than just employing them on the basis of them having a qualification.
Don’t Expect Everything
Good education should only ever be seen as a foundation. If you have properly learnt the fundamentals of horticulture, you will have the ability to adapt those fundamentals when you encounter a new plant, product or process. The plants we grow and the way we grow and market them is changing faster than ever. It is impossible to predict what cultivars or products will be most popular in 5 years time; but a person who has ALL the fundamentals will encounter new things, understand them and remember them faster than someone who has not acquired the same foundation. Staff who have a broader based and more in depth foundation will see the possibilities and be more likely to perform every time something changes in the workplace. Good education makes the employee more productive and adaptable; while qualifications may be little more than something to put in a frame on the wall.

SOME THINGS YOU MAY NOT KNOW ABOUT EDUCATION
• Good Education is stored in a person’s long term memory. The Australian Training System tests short term memory.
You cannot fast track learning. Most people only retain and properly understand things by encountering them repeatedly, and in different ways, over a period of time.
You can show someone something, test them and declare them competent all on the same day, in a short space of time; and that may be all that is required to award someone an accredited training package qualification.
• The traditional way of planning for and providing education is fundamentally flawed
Traditional education (e.g. TAFE’s, RTO’s and Universities) commonly take many years from identifying a need for training, to when they commence delivering on that need. The world is moving  faster than ever though.  Commonly, after determining the need, committees are set up, research is conducted, funding is sough, curriculum is written, tenders are called, course notes are written; and finally funding is arranged to deliver a course and students are recruited. Often the course being delivered is based upon a need that was seen many years earlier. Does this make any sense in today’s rapidly changing world?
• Diversity is really important
I discovered early in my working life that if I had a team of 5 staff from 5 very different courses, I would get lots of different ideas about how to do a job; but when I had 5 who all did the same course, the range of ideas was far less. It may be attractive to politicians and bureaucrats to create “standardized” “national” training; but it is diversity that drives the world today. We need a lot of different courses teaching different things and producing graduates who approach problems different ways.
• Distance Education is more Cost Effective and Flexible than Classroom Based education
This wasn’t always the case.  Compare:
A classroom based course requires physical infrastructure (e.g. buildings, equipment), a dedicated teacher etc and must be timetabled to happen at a particular time. Students have travel costs.
A distance ed. course doesn’t need the above; and with modern technology, it can connect students and teachers over the internet. Students can watch videos, take virtual tours of nurseries and farms all over the world, conduct research using the internet, submit assignments in a flash, and receive marked work back as soon as it is marked; and study at any time of day or night that suits.  Each student is treated as an individual.  Distance education used to be chosen because it was more convenient; but today people are choosing it because it is better and provides more one on one interaction with their tutors.
• Traditional Horticultural Education is in Crisis, but Other Alternatives are Growing.
Horticulture courses have been shrinking at TAFE's and Universities over recent times. Funding has come under pressure. Colleges are expected to produce more graduates with no extra funding.
The bright side of horticultural education though is that new learning options have been developing eg.  Social Networking –Gardeners around the world are connecting and sharing over facebook & other social media
RHS Courses are now  being offered by Distance Ed world Wide
Alternative Education is booming –The ACS network, Permaculture Network
Garden Shows on TV are more prevalent and popular than ever. Shows like Gardening Australia, Better Homes & Gardens and Garden Gurus have been educating the broader Australian public.  Home gardeners, as well as new people entering the industry, are developing a broader & deeper understanding of horticulture than ever before.

Education driven by politicians & bureaucrats  more than teachers …We now talk about outcomes, licenses and lifelong learning where we used to talk about learning and having a foundation to start learning on the job.

People expect courses to give everything that is needed to walk in & start doing the job…but that shows a fundamental misunderstanding….What should employers expect….The value of an educated staff member is not that they know it all, but that they will learn it faster.