The CGA of Southern Africa
The The Citrus Growers’ Association of Southern Africa (CGA) has announced an innovative programme to complement the current high school curriculum and provide learners with more career options. The CGA will offer a qualification in citrus production to high school learners across the country to increase leaners’ job prospects and also attract more young people to the farming and agricultural sector.
What the Programme Entails
According to CGA, this year will see more than 450 students enrol at schools in the Citrus Secondary programme. The programme is driven by The Citrus Academy, a subsidiary of the CGA and presents a window of opportunity for learners to achieve an accredited plant production qualification while still in high school. It is a two-year programme targeting learners in Grade 10 and Grade 11.
The modules have been designed to coincide with the citrus production cycle and the curriculum will cover areas such as enterprise planning, irrigation, financial management, pest management and plant manipulation. In addition, the programme is aligned with the existing national curriculum and can also be incorporated into subjects such as agricultural management practices. Alternatively, it can be taught as an extramural activity whereby learners can attain a valuable qualification.
SA’s Citrus Growing Areas
In terms of the roll-out of the programme, priority will be given to regions already growing and producing citrus. Regions to benefit from the programme include Bonnievale and Riversdale in the Western Cape, Patensie, Kirkwood and Fort Beaufort in the Eastern Cape, Umzimkulu in KwaZulu-Natal, Kakamas in the Northern Cape and Hoedspruit, N’wamitwa and Tzaneen in the Limpopo Province.
The Citrus Academy’s general manager, Jacomien de Klerk, said: “It opens a path into an industry that can offer so many opportunities. It addresses a challenge that many school-leavers unfortunately face; having few marketable skills while not having access to tertiary education.” De Klerk added that the ultimate goal is to drive transformation in the citrus sector and create a new breed of passionate youth to enter the industry.
E-Learning Platform
The Citrus Academy will provide the programme’s content, assessment and administration, leveraging its cutting-edge e-learning platform. Learners can also access supporting information, videos and sound clips and engage with interactive material through the platform. The programme was first piloted last year in two schools in the Sunday’s River Valley and one in Humansdorp. The pilot provided a positive and valuable feedback, according to Theo Bezuidenhout, a community development co-ordinator from the Sundays River Valley Collaborative, a non-profit company. “We’ve learned so much about how to make the programme work practically during the pilot phase, but what we found out was that there is an immense interest in and need for this type of qualification. In one school, registrations doubled as things progressed,” he said.
Citrus a Growing sector
The citrus industry in SA exported 165.1 million (15kg) cartons for delivery to global markets during 2023. It supports 140,000 livelihoods on farms where levels of unemployment and poverty are widespread. The sector brings in over R30bn a year in export revenue and it is projected that the industry can grow to provide a further 100,000 jobs in the next eight years if all key stakeholders collaborate to secure increased market access and improved export logistics.
