On January 1 in the Farm Weekly, I committed the unpardonable sin of writing an opinion. Yes, I know — shocking behaviour. More specifically, I questioned whether Australia’s apprenticeship system, particularly for ag heavy diesel technicians, is actually delivering what it claims to deliver.
Some readers may recall the piece How to Jump-Start the Next Generation of Ag Technicians, if I may say so it’s worth a read or reread.
Shortly after publication, I received a lengthy unhappy text from a senior representative of a training industry body that purports to represent the ag sector.
He was “saddened”. He felt my observations were “naïve”. He warned that articles like mine were the reason parents discouraged their children from pursuing apprenticeships. He invoked my “predetermined biases”, a 2,000-year-old system of learning, and suggested that if only we sat down for a chat, I would surely come to my senses.
Now, those who know me know I am never one to shy away from debate. One of the occupational hazards of writing opinion pieces is that people occasionally write back. When they do, I tend to think readers should see the exchange — if only so they can judge for themselves who is arguing from evidence and who is defending a system by reflex.
So, with that in mind, I am going to share the criticism I received from a government-funded quango whose job is to advise government on improving agricultural training — and you can make up your own mind if I am apparently hopelessly ill-informed.
But before going any further, let me be clear about what I am not arguing — because much of the criticism I received appears to have been aimed at a different article, written by someone else, in another universe.
I am not opposed to apprenticeships.
I am not opposed to competency-based training.
I am not suggesting trades can be learned entirely in classrooms, online modules or weekend boot camps.
What I am questioning is whether Australia’s apprenticeship system, could benefit from following the examples of counties like Germany that seem to be able to produce ag mechanics in half the time it takes Australia.
In theory, we have a flexible system. Smart apprentices can finish early. Prior learning can be recognised. Block or front-end models are permitted. Overseas qualifications can be acknowledged. All true — on paper.
In practice, however, the system all too often, defaults to time served.
A four-year apprenticeship is not the outcome of demonstrated competence; it is the safest bureaucratic setting. Employers are disincentivised from signing apprentices off early because subsidies disappear overnight and wages jump immediately. RTOs face their own deterrents: early completion increases audit risk and administrative burden. Letting the clock run is easier, safer, and institutionally rewarded.
That is not a moral failing. It is a design flaw — one that, judging by the response, appears far harder for my detractor to confront than the arguments I actually made
Unfortunately, organisations that dependent on the government drip are rarely well placed to offer frank and fearless advice on what industry actually needs. Hence, I have taken up the challenge myself.
I did offer my new friend the opportunity to draft a rebuttal article. He has not as yet taken up the offer, but it still stands.
What follows are selected excerpts from his correspondence, with my responses.
“I was saddened to read the article and learn of the naivety of your observations of an Ag Mechanical Technician apprenticeship.”
I’m sorry you’re sad. Let me see if I can make you feel better.
“You have proceeded to compare a (university) degree with a competency-based VET qualification.
Read it again. Carefully this time.
I did not compare a university degree to a competency-based VET qualification.
I compared the flexibility of the university system with the rigidity of the apprenticeship system — and I did so explicitly, deliberately, and in plain English.
Here is what I actually wrote:
“This stands in stark contrast to the university sector, which happily recognises prior learning, accelerates progression and takes full fees for the privilege. You have to ask why the same flexibility is unthinkable when it comes to skills that actually keep farms and workshops running.”
That is not a comparison of credentials. It is a comparison of policy settings.
I did not argue that trades should be taught like degrees. I argued that skills training should be allowed to behave like a competency-based system when it claims to be one.
I went further:
“A Certificate III in Heavy Commercial Vehicle Mechanical Technology contains roughly 1,600 to 1,800 nominal hours of training. Delivered full-time, that equates to nine to twelve months of classroom and workshop instruction.”
That is not a university analogy. That is the VET training package speaking for itself.
The contradiction I highlighted is simple: Australia formally acknowledges that the skills can be taught in around a year — yet refuses to credential them unless the clock is allowed to run for four.
That is not competency-based training. As I wrote:
“That is not competency-based training. It is time served, with a competency label stuck on the front.”
The university comparison was used for one reason only: to expose the absurdity that we are comfortable with accelerated, fee-for-service, globally mobile pathways for doctors and lawyers, yet panic at the idea of similar flexibility for diesel technicians.
“The lack of knowledge you convey is why parents refrain from supporting their children to take on apprenticeships.”
That is a long bow — but I am pleased to hear others take my words with such gravity.
The comparison with university pathways was deliberate. It highlights a contradiction in how Australia treats skills versus professions. We are comfortable with fee-for-service, accelerated and flexible models in higher education — yet recoil at similar flexibility in trades.
That is not undermining apprenticeships; it is asking why one pathway is protected from innovation and competition.
“Everything you said I could challenge. And you would struggle to accept this because of predetermined biases.”
Everything? Time to put the black kettle on. Clearly, both of us need to unpack our predetermined biases with a therapist.
“The problem is not the product — the apprenticeship qualification — but its implementation by RTOs. Why aren’t you arguing about that instead of undermining a 2,000-year-old system of learning?”
Two thousand years! I always wondered what the Romans ever gave us.
Jokes aside, what we have inherited is a medieval, guild-based system still heavily focused on time served. That may once have made sense. It makes far less sense in a modern labour market facing acute skills shortages and global competition for technicians.
“The block or front-end model works in high-density population contexts. WA requires broader skills.”
Two million people in Perth is not a small population base. The scale of our heavy diesel and agricultural machinery sector should place us alongside Germany, Canada and the United States — not lock us into a 1950s UK training template.
“You are undermining the status and credibility of apprenticeships.”
What actually undermines confidence is when bright, mechanically capable young people look at four years of low wages, delayed responsibility and uncertain progression — in a mining boom state — and vote with their feet and take the unskilled mining job. Parents are not confused by critique; they are confused by a system that insists it is flexible while behaving as though it is not.
“Your national association supports apprenticeships, yet here you are throwing grenades.”
The NFF supported ‘The Voice’ I would not worry too much about what they support. Support does not preclude critique. Nor does it require silence.
My article did not “throw grenades”. It proposed reforms: front-loaded theory, intensive training hubs, and repurposing Muresk as a one-year, high-intensity ag-mechanics program capable of graduating around 100 students a year to near-job-ready standard. From there, workshop and paddock experience would do what it is meant to do.
These models already operate overseas. They were not rebutted. You simply ignored them.
“At a time when government has reduced incentives for employers in non-priority areas, your argument makes little sense.”
Heavy diesel agricultural technicians are not suffering from a lack of starters or a lack of government incentives. They are suffering from a system that is too slow, too rigid and poorly aligned with industry demand.
Which brings us to the facts that were never engaged with:
In Germany, John Deere and Fendt technicians are typically productive within 18–24 months, with full qualification achieved in around 2.5 to 3 years. In the United States, OEM-aligned technical colleges regularly produce job-ready technicians within 12–24 months. Canada follows closely behind.
These systems do not undermine trades. They strengthen them.
Systems can always be improved. But defending time served as a virtue in itself, while ignoring how our global competitors are fast tracking ag mechanics, does no one any favours.
Some sacred cows deserve a little less reverence. No doubt my readers will be keen to read your paragraph-by-paragraph critique of my original article.
As you stated, ‘Everything you said I could challenge’.
