The Gateway Schools to Agribusiness project aims to help young people make a successful transition from school into further education or employment, through a number of initiatives including embedding an agricultural context in a broad range of curriculum in schools in Queensland. It encourages meaningful collaboration between schools, vocational education and training, universities and industry to provide career opportunities in rural industries for students.

The Career Pathway into the Cotton Industry project adopted the principles used in the Gateway Schools to Agribusiness program to create links to agricultural industries in the school regional areas and develop a strong program of vocational education for students.

The project’s focus was two-fold namely:

o Develop contextualised curriculum examples that are developed from cotton industry RDE investments

o Provision of professional development to teachers that creates industry to education relationships.

The project created a model to engage schools in developing curriculum resources contextualised to their specific local agricultural industry i.e. cotton. The process was driven through a reference group comprised of school teachers, agricultural industry experts and a curriculum writer.

The outcomes have been industry-based learning in a subject other than traditional agricultural subjects to engage with students who may not have considered an agricultural career until that time. The cotton industry has been very receptive of this approach to raising the profile of careers opportunities and the opportunity for direct engagement with schools.

Learnings from the process of engaging with rural industry and linking regional businesses to local schools can be applied to other contexts to enable students to have a broader understanding of their regional career opportunities. Finally, if the industry aims to attract young people, industry focussed education and career awareness experiences at a school level is crucial. Teachers, career advisers and parents within a cotton growing region should be aware of the importance of the cotton industry, its breadth of opportunities across its supply chain, its innovative practices and its committed response to environmental changes. Once a better awareness and understanding occurs here, this awareness will then effectively transition through to our youth through curriculum and other avenues, ultimately working to attracting more into this vibrant agribusiness.