The Strzelecki Lions Club members are behind the origin of the Cows Create Careers program, which has been delivering calves to schools for 21 years. Photo: Jeanette Severs.
Photo by
Jeanette Severs
The Cows Create Careers program turns 21 years old in 2025 and it inspires students to aim to be dairy farmers, veterinarians, animal nutritionists and reproductive scientists.
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Cows Create Careers started as a local pilot project in South Gippsland, Victoria, initiated by the dairy farmers who were members of the Strzelecki Lions Club.
“The Cows Create Careers program started in 2004 and was initiated through the South Gippsland Dairy Expo,” co-ordinator, Deanne Kennedy said.
“The Strzelecki Lions Club organises the dairy expo and with all of them are dairy farmers, they wanted to share their love of agriculture in the dairy industry with secondary school students.
“They wanted to be able to share what great career pathways were out there for them, and the opportunities in the dairy industry.
“They wanted to excite some students to think about careers that they might not have thought about before.”
A curriculum was developed to deliver a short program locally, with the help of Sylvia Vagg, Michelle Axford, Deanne Kennedy, John Hutchison and Graeme Lacey from the Lions Club, and Rod Cameron. Rod was appointed the curriculum writer.
“Rod wrote some terrific curriculum,” Deanne said.
“We were all as green as green, we put together a three-year plan, and we were all volunteering to deliver the program in schools.
“In that first year, we had nine schools in Gippsland.
“Then the following year, more schools came to us, from Mornington Peninsula and other dairy regions, and they wanted to expand the program.”
Deanne Kennedy and John Hutchison, of Jaydee Events, designed the Cows Create Careers program. Photo: by Nick Reid.
An appeal to the Gardiner Foundation at the time delivered seed funding to take the program into more schools in Gippsland and in south-west and northern Victoria.
A few years after inception, Cows Create Careers was being offered as a national in-schools program supported by funding from Dairy Australia and Gardiner Foundation.
“It’s the longest-standing agricultural program in schools that’s right across Australia, and it’s been delivered every single year since 2004,” Deanne said.
“It’s in about 240 schools across 23 dairy regions each year.”
In 2022, the project received recognition from the Victoria Curriculum and Assessment Authority, and is now embedded within the Design and Technologies, Food and Fibre Production module.
The purpose of Cows Create Careers is to introduce primary and secondary students, Year 5 to Year 11, to potential vocational and professional careers in the dairy industry.
“We use dairy calves as a net to capture their interest and provide a fun way for them to understand the science in agriculture,” Deanne said.
“It doesn’t matter what school I go into, I can stand in front of a class of students in a country school and ask them to name some careers in the dairy industry, and I’ll hear dairy farmer, and I might get a cheesemaker.
“Number one, students don’t understand what a dairy farmer has to do to be successful in the year 2025.
“Number two, you know, we talk about the city-country divide, but many of our country students don’t really know anything about where their food comes from either.”
Students from schools in West Gippsland gathered at Warragul for end-of-year presentations about their learning in the Cows Create Careers program. Photo: Nick Reid.
Data is collected each year from schools to measure the success of the program. This has proven increased understanding of career pathways among students and teachers.
Often, students’ top choices for work experience are veterinary science and dairy farming.
The majority of students also demonstrate a significantly increased understanding of the breadth of career choices in the dairy industry.
After two decades, the passion that ignited Cows Create Careers can be seen in the many employees working in government and private industry.
“Some of those students that were the first to do Cows Create Careers in primary or secondary school are now working in agriculture,” Deanne said.
“Some of them teach Cows Create Careers in schools.
“Daniel Bacon from Reid Stockfeeds was a student.
“I see them pop up in roles. You can’t track how it’s gone because you can’t track every university entrance form, or apprenticeship.
“I just happen to meet them in my life.
“Somebody will say they did Cows Create Careers and they’re now working for an agricultural company.”
Deanne is starting to develop case studies around some of the students she knows.
The other success story is the dairy farmers who have been involved.
Lindsay Anderson, from Athlone, has been providing calves each year for 20 years to several urban and metropolitan schools involved in Cows Create Careers. (see separate story).
Bradley Richardson, a dairy farmer from the Lower Hunter, spoke to NSW students participating in Cows Create Careers in 2011. Bradley spoke about his role in the family dairy farm and career opportunities.
He spoke about the different skills required in the management of a farm, from pasture establishment through to herd management.
Bradley completed his traineeship on the farm while studying a Certificate IV in Agriculture at Tocal College.
Deanne Kennedy, of Jaydee Events, said the Cows Create Careers program is the longest-standing agricultural program in schools across Australia. Photo: Jeanette Severs.
Photo by
Jeanette Severs
“Local dairy farmers are the face of the industry and the program and they give up their time, go into the schools and chat to the students about career pathways,” Deanne said.
“Or an industry person, like a processor or feed company, go into the schools and talk to the students about their career pathway and their background, and how they came to be working for that organisation.
“They’re the reason this program’s strong all these years later.”
Victoria Alexander studied the Cows Create Careers elective in Year 9 at Finley High School, NSW.
Victoria assumed she would work on her family’s dairy farm, but after participating in the Cows Create Careers program and exposure to other ideas, she now works in reproductive science in south-west Victoria.
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