Kirsty McCallum, from Glenmaggie in Gippsland, with Henry the Hereford steer at South West TAFE’s Glenormiston College Open Day.
PROSPECTIVE students took the opportunity to see all Glenormiston College has to offer at the facility’s open day on Sunday.
With young teenagers, school leavers and mature-age students showing interest, staff and current students shared insights into the South West TAFE campus which specialises in agriculture, agronomy, equine, racing and horticulture studies.
The day’s activities included course information sessions, training facility displays, accommodation tours, horse demonstrations, a steer competition, machinery displays, tours of the college’s wedding and conference facilities, a barbecue lunch and guided tours of the college’s historic mansion and garden.
College business and events co-ordinator Brenda Borg said there had been about 60 attendees showing great interest in the campus, which features a dairy farm, pasture research laboratory, machinery workshops, automatic weather station, two-storey indoor learning complex and library.
“We’ve been flat out. We think we’ve probably had about 100 people come through today and up to 60 interested students,” Ms Borg said.
“We’ve found of the 50 or 60 prospective students, most were very positive and we felt we didn’t have ‘tyre-kickers’ wandering through.
“The people here seemed well on the way to making a decision of what they want to do. There were people finishing school this year but we’re quite surprised and encouraged by the number of mature-age students and the younger teenagers planning ahead for the next couple of years ... even the weather was in our favour.”
The campus also runs as a commercial operation, with facilities including a 36-hectare horse stud with stables, feed sheds and tack rooms, AI laboratory, horsebreaking and training areas and starting stalls.