Strategic Business Partner

Organisation: St Paul’s Collegiate School
Grant Number: L15009
Grant Amount: $115,000
Grant Type: Capability Development Grants

In 2014, St Paul’s Collegiate School set about establishing an agribusiness programme that meets the primary industry’s needs for engaged, well-qualified and capable young people who are enthusiastic about their career opportunities in the rural sector.

St Paul’s has worked with sector leaders and organisations including AGMARDT and twelve other business partners, to develop a new agribusiness programme suitable for teaching 16-18 year olds at secondary schools NCEA levels 2 and 3.

In conjunction with the Ministry of Education, St Paul’s has successfully:

  • trialled the agribusiness programme in ten secondary schools throughout New Zealand,
  • written and registered seven agribusiness achievement standards on the New Zealand Qualification Framework,
  • re-contextualised existing NCEA level 2 and 3 learning programmes into agribusiness contexts,
  • assisted 39 schools to teach an agribusiness programme in their school in 2018, and
  • established an advisory group involving key representatives from across the primary sector.

In July, St Paul’s won the Prime Minister’s Education Excellence Award for ‘Excellence in Leading – Atakuru Award’ for their collaboration with primary sector businesses in devising an innovative agribusiness programme for Year 12 and 13 students. This has resulted in the school leading change within the primary industries and education sectors.

“AGMARDTs funding has enabled St Paul’s Collegiate School to deliver on their promise to create an engaging agribusiness programme for tertiary-qualified students. This programme is now not only available at St Paul’s, but is being taught in 38 secondary schools throughout New Zealand. Almost 1000 students are currently learning agribusiness which, in time, will see significant benefits for the country’s agri sector. This could never have been achieved without the support of AGMARDT.” Grant Lander, Headmaster St Paul’s Collegiate School

We are grateful for the assistance the AGMARDT Grant provided. It has allowed Freshco to direct sales and manage our own destinies in each market enabling us to extract more value from the supply chain to the consumer.

John Mangan / Director, Freshco

AGMARDT supports and enables. Projects and people benefit from funding; New Zealand benefits from development of ideas, technologies, approaches and leadership. In particular, the trust facilitates information dissemination: AGMARDT is the catalyst for ripples that spread through the primary sector.

Dr Jacqueline Rowarth /

AGMARDT's support of Texus in the above process tangibly accelerated the development of the above essential activities and testing of market entry strategy, while also exposing Texus management to cutting-edge thought leadership around market shaping and the levers that can be applied to scope and facilitate such shaping.

Nick Davenport / CEO, Texus Fibre Industry Leader Scholarship Winner

The support from AGMARDT has enabled us to gain greater insights into farmer behaviour across all sectors and which will assist accelerated uptake of the livestock exchange and enhance market opportunities for all farmers.

Jason Roebuck / Managing Director, Stock-X Limited