Building bridges through agriculture
At one Australian college, a proposed course in livestock raising (not part of the IB’s current initiative) has taken its first intercultural steps.
At Wesley College, an IB World School in Melbourne, Australia, a new vocational option is being explored. And it is an attractive option for a very special reason.
Last year, Wesley College launched a partnership of a unique kind with an aboriginal community in North Western Australia. At Fitzroy Crossing in the Kimberley, work has begun with Wesley College and the Fitzroy Crossing Community to build the capacity of two very different communities (one aboriginal, the other non-aboriginal) to grow and to learn from each other.
In one community, at Fitzroy Crossing, the mother tongue languages, including Bunuba, Gooniyandi, Walmajarri and Wangkajunga, are at great risk of dying out. In the other, in Melbourne, the desire to learn about language and culture, about Australia’s history and people, and how to bring about reconciliation, is strong.
“The potential for an IB vocational curriculum to build much needed bridges across two starkly contrasting, though geographically contiguous, cultures is enormous,” says college principal Dr Helen Drennen. “Currently, we are exploring subjects for applied learning related to agricultural science and the beef industry. This would form part of a qualification which aboriginal and non aboriginal students alike could study, at a fully-owned aboriginal cattle station in northern Australia. Areas for study include the genetics of herd development, cattle mustering, international marketing, sales and export.
“This is just one possibility for one school involved in one partnership. Imagine the potential of so many others. In exploring vocational education, the potential to draw on the growing interest and expertise from within many curriculum and qualification authorities, at local, national and international levels, is rich indeed. Developing pathways between qualifications, with credit transfer and articulation, may be just two possible ways by which this could happen.”
For more information on the project, contact principal@wesleycollege.netSend us your comments on this article.
“The potential for an IB vocational curriculum to build much needed bridges across two starkly contrasting, though geographically contiguous, cultures is enormous,”
