Elizabeth Heeg: Forestry Owners' Association CEO on the food and fibre sector's call for tertiary reform

A push for more work-based learning, to give food and fibre employers greater input on training. 

Key players like Beef + Lamb New Zealand and Federated Farmers have teamed up to demand an overhaul from the government. 

The sectors have released the Food and Fibre Workforce Capability Strategy. 

Forestry Owners' Association Chief Executive Elizabeth Heeg told Francesca Rudkin the strategy sets out a pathway to train the next generation of skilled workers. 

She says they want to work with the government to ensure the system prioritises capabilities and not just credentials. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Our agriculture industry claims the education system is letting it down.
Leaders from farming, forestry, horticulture and seafood have joined forces
to launch a bold new strategy. They're calling on government
to overhaul vocational education and save our economic future. Doctor
Elizabeth Heegue is the CEO of the New Zealand forest
Owners Association and she's with me now. Good morning, Elizabeth,

(00:22):
good morning. Hey, where have all our skills young people gone?
What's going wrong here?

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Well? I think our concern is the current model is
not really facilitating employers to do the kind of on
the job training that we need to be able to
do to keep a vibrant food and fiber workforce here
in New Zealand. And so we're calling on the government.
You know, we're in the midst of the vocational education changes.
Let's work together right now to have a system that

(00:50):
prioritizes capability and not just credentials, and that focuses on
the impact of those learners on the economy.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
Okay, So if this is going to be more employer
lead to the employees want to do.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
This absolutely, I mean certainly I can speak to in forestry,
we've got a really high proportion of on the job training.
But we find right now that a lot of the
trainers and the employers are struggling with the level of
bureaucracy that they have to work through to do that training.
And so we'd really like, through the current reforms to

(01:23):
get to a system that enables them to do the training. Obviously,
you need to have standards, but we don't need to
have a whole lot of red tape wrapped around those
educational standards, and we can get out there and make
sure that we're training people on the ground to do
what they need to do.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
Okay, I'll get to the training in just a moment.
Are there enough lower level, lower entry level positions out
there as well?

Speaker 2 (01:46):
Yeah? I think there are. I mean, we've got a
lot of work to do in the primary sector and
obviously this year across the range of products that we
produce in New Zealand, you know, we're seeing growth in
a number of areas, and the government strategy is around
further growth. To do that, we're going to need the
people to back that up, and that's going to require

(02:07):
that we're able to train those people. And I guess
one of the concerns that we've had is some of
the models that have been proposed would look at like
the number of learners. In some cases, we need specialty
skills that aren't going to have a high number in say,
you know, a specific trade in the primary sector, but

(02:29):
that person is critical to the overall success of the team,
and so we need to be able to maintain some
of those credentials that may not have a high number
of bums on seats, so to speak, but that actually
have a really high impact on our overall ability to
achieve that growth in the primary sector.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
And of course that's where the becomes more cost efficient
to be learning on the job. Is it expensive to
get trained? Is it accessible for a lower income earner
to get up skills in the sector?

Speaker 2 (03:00):
I think what we would like to do is work
with the government. It really depends on the qualification and
what we would like to do is work with the
government on that balance of the investment from the employer
and the investment of the government. And I think some
of that right now. You know, some of the polytechnic
models haven't been very cost efficient, and I can understand

(03:22):
why the government was looking at reform of those. But
I think our concern is you could end up transferring
a lot of costs onto the employers if we don't
set up a really a really dynamic system that's able
to work effectively on the ground. And we've got some
ideas about how we could work with the government so

(03:43):
that we're getting the most out of both the industry
investment and learners and the public investment in learners.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
Thanks so much, elizabeth're talking us through this. Love a
solution to a problem. It was doctor Elizabeth Haigue. There
for more Family Edition with Ryan Bridge.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
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