Although the Hendrik Potgieter Agricultural School in Reddersburg does not have a farm, it is making its presence felt in the realm of agricultural education in the Free State.
By Vida Booysen, senior journalist at African Farming and Landbouweekblad
This year, the school was chosen as host and organiser of the Free State Department of Education’s first multi-certification project. This involves training more than 450 learners from 16 agricultural schools in the Free State this year to pass accredited practical and theoretical agricultural courses.
This year’s courses involve sheep handling, animal health and good management. In May, they completed a sheep handling course, and in August, courses in animal health and good management will be offered. All three courses have been accredited by the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA).
Anri Coetzee, Head of Department of agricultural training at this school, says the school has done pioneering work by allowing its agriculture learners to do accredited practical agricultural courses at school level.
Certificates that open doors
She proudly says that, thanks to their proven practical skills, some of Hendrik Potgieter’s pupils are employed in the wool and sheep industry right after matriculating.
One of them is Hans van Schalkwyk, currently South Africa’s shearing champion, who, after matric and thanks to the shearing and wool classifying skills he had already learned in school, was appointed shearer at DG Snyman shearing services.
“We saw an urgent need. You have to take an agriculture child to a practical demonstration or an auction, but he has nothing to show for it when he returns. We then examined the available short courses that agriculture learners can complete while in school, for which they can receive official recognition. If the learners then study at a tertiary institution in an agricultural direction, they can get credit for the accredited courses they have already completed.”
The school has been offering shearing and wool classifying courses to its learners during the winter holidays for several years, in collaboration with the National Wool Growers Association. Ten practical short courses were selected in 2023 and made part of the school’s practical agriculture curriculum. The Vrystaat Landboukollege, a private Afrikaans agricultural college just outside Bloemfontein, offers the courses.
“Our learners then do four short courses in gr. 10 and 11, one per term, and two in gr.12. This means our matric child who has agricultural management practice as a subject leaves the school with 10 certificates.”
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From Reddersburg to the Free State
It did not take long for the Free State Department of Education to become aware of this clever plan and to decide to implement it more broadly. The department then referred to it as multi-certification and inquired whether the Hendrik Potgieter Agricultural School would train 50 matriculants from other agricultural schools. “We were all for it.”
The multi-certification project soon expanded to 450 children already participating from gr.10, and the department has since identified Hendrik Potgieter as its training centre. The plan is for two more Free State agricultural schools to serve as training centres from next year.
The size of the project has placed numerous demands on this small agricultural school in Reddersburg this year, as it does not have the facilities to accommodate so many children. The school consists of only 372 high and primary school learners.
“Ironically, we don’t have a sheep of a day old on our site. We also don’t have a farm like many other agricultural schools have.”
Partnerships strengthen programme
How, then, do they provide practical training for 450 children without sheep? “We have charitable farmers. Wikus Bekker of Crux Dohnes in the Edenburg district lent us 20 of his sheep in May, and we used these sheep every day for practical training in sheep handling and locked them up again in the evening.”
Coetzee recounts with laughter that by the fourth day of the sheep catching training, “those sheep offered their legs when the children approached.”
The following week, Eddie Prinsloo of Heuningkrans at Smithfield lent some of his sheep for the next group’s training. “People should not tell you that they cannot do the practical training because they do not have sheep. We did it; we just borrowed the sheep.”
Sponsorships and assistance were also received from the private sector, with Itec sponsoring all the water for the children and the printing, and Parrot lent us an LED screen for the duration of the courses.
“Free State College of Agriculture is our service provider, and they are working with Skills for Africa, who issues the certificates. The two presenters are Dave Grobbelaar of Free State College of Agriculture and Herman Maartens of the OVK.”
This is how it feels to touch a sheep
She relates that for many learners from the Free State who take agricultural management as a subject, it was the first time they had touched a sheep. “Then there were schools, like our school’s gr.12s and 11s, that had already done a sheep handling course when they were in gr.10. So they knew what to do.”
Each learner was given a printed manual, and it was explained to them what they would do in practice. Then they were taught how to catch and hold a sheep correctly and to determine its age by looking at its teeth, and the learners were also shown how to dose a sheep. “But there was nothing in the syringe; they just practised. The course leaders also showed the learners how to count sheep.”
The schools came from as far as Kroonstad, Bothaville, Viljoenskroon, Tweespruit, Qwaqwa, Heilbron, Bainsvlei, Vredefort and Parys to attend the sheep-handling training. Because they were one-day courses, they drove through each morning and drove back after the day’s practical work.
A number of high-ranking members from the Free State Department of Education, as well as the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, attended the project launch at the school in May and acknowledged the school and its pioneering work in their speeches.
In his speech, the Acting Department Head of the Free State Department of Agriculture, Tshepo Mabilo, also expressed his department’s commitment to expanding the working relationship with agricultural schools and working with the Department of Education to support these types of meaningful projects.
“The agricultural sector continues to develop and requires skilled professionals. Many learners graduate without the necessary skills required by the industry. The integration of multi-certification courses into school curricula has become essential to better prepare learners for higher education and the workplace,” he said.
