Katikati College and Horticulture in the Bay of Plenty
Katikati College is a semi-rural secondary school catering to Year 7-13. The school roll is around 800 students of which 20% are Māori and 4% are Pasifika.
Katikati College is situated in the rural western Bay of Plenty and is surrounded by orchards, primarily kiwifruit and avocado.
Katikati is a mixed socio-economic area with wealthy rural landowners living next door to very low-income residential homes, often with multiple families under one roof. The kiwifruit and avocado industries provide local, seasonal work which means out of season unemployment soars. In low-income families, poor health and housing issues are most often felt.
Horticulture is at the heart of Katikati community. Consultation around 2017 with the horticultural industry; both local employers and national bodies, confirmed that the College horticulture course was identified as a very poor fit with modern trainers’ and employers’ needs. The College noted that its learners in Horticulture were disengaged, lacking an understanding of the relevance of the learning and potential pathways, with little motivation and curiosity. Academic achievement was low.
The idea of the Innovative Horticulture Programme emerged. The position of Innovative Horticulture Manager was created. The appointee’s role was to design and implement an innovative programme of learning to prepare students for the Horticulture industry as well as bring together business partners from the Horticulture sector.
The programme was to build on already established foundations and include more accessible, authentic, inclusive, contextually relevant learning, that offered learners multiple pathways. It also aimed to address poor community perception and form strong community and industry connections and partnerships, catering to the diverse needs of our college learning community and leading to the diverse facets of this huge industry.
The programme began in 2018 at Level 1 (Year 11) and in 2020 it was fully in place for all of Levels 1-3 (Years 11-13). Learning is supported by a large range of rich multi-media resources hosted in the Innovative Horticulture website, allowing rewindable, anytime anywhere self-paced learning.
Since 2022 the number of students enrolled in the programme has exceeded 100, this representing over a third of the senior school students. Retention, engagement and achievement are impressive.
The Bay of Plenty
Horticultural Sector
New Zealand’s horticulture sector is experiencing strong growth. Within the Bay of Plenty, this growth is led by the kiwifruit and avocado industries and supported by some new horticultural developments.
The projected growth of the kiwifruit industry alone will contribute significantly to the Bay of Plenty GDP, increasing it by 135% from 867 million to 2.04 billion by 2029/2030, (source: University of Waikato). Already, 82% of New Zealand kiwifruit currently comes from the Bay of Plenty and accounts for 8% of the region’s employment. More than a third of New Zealand’s horticulture revenue is attributable to kiwifruit, and a simple calculation demonstrates that 28% of that revenue comes from Bay of Plenty fruit.
The key constraints to achieving this growth can be summarised as land, labour and water. In particular, lack of water infrastructure and attraction of permanent and seasonal labour to the region are significant areas of concern.
The critical shortage in kiwifruit workers could hinder the growth in the industry. The horticulture industry is working collaboratively with industry, regional stakeholders and government through the Bay of Connections Regional Growth Programme to establish a long-term strategy to address the current and predicted future shortages of people to support industry growth. This includes research to better understand employment needs over the next ten years, strategies to attract and upskill young people and projects to enhance Māori business and governance.
The Bay of Plenty Tertiary Intentions Strategy has recommended the development of a business case for creating a global centre for primary sector research and education, initially focused on horticulture, and the New Zealand Kiwifruit Growers Inc. It is also considering the establishment of a horticulture and agriculture academy in the Bay of Plenty.
The Annual Report from Priority One (the Western Bay of Plenty’s economic development agency) highlights education as a critical catalyst within regional innovation to drive economic growth. It emphasises the importance of initiatives that will ensure future labour force develop skills in line with the region’s strengths, particularly through secondary and tertiary education opportunities. The 2015 Toi Moana Regional Growth Study highlights nine key work streams to be developed in the Bay of Plenty including: Agribusiness; Forestry and Wood Products; Horticulture; Education and Skills and Māori Land Utilisation.