A CONCRETE manufacturer has forged a partnership with the College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise (CAFRE) in a bid to help horticulture students gain real-life industry experience.
CAFRE at Greenmount Campus is the only college in Northern Ireland to offer professional qualifications in Horticulture, with students covering landscape gardening including installation of hard landscaping. There are currently 44 full-time students and 32 part-time students across its general and landscape classes at craft and supervisory level courses.
AG recently hosted 11 students at its Ballygawley site, where the students got hands-on experience of cutting concrete paving slabs and laying them out in preparation for a brochure photo-shoot for Outside Rooms, the consumer-facing landscaping product arm of AG.
For students studying at levels two and three there are several AG Outside Rooms work placement positions now up for grabs, where they will gain exposure to the day-to-day running and upkeep of the AG Outside Rooms showrooms or work in alongside AG’s award-winning professional landscape designer.
Alan Mcllveen, Greenmount College, said: “There is a big need for young skilled professionals coming through. More and more people now are shunning house moves for redesign and renovation and with that comes the need for skilled landscapers and landscape gardeners to help bring their vision to life. As a college we have been doing exceptionally well in the Worldskills competitions for landscape gardening with CAFRE-trained students being part of the two-person UK team for each of the last four competitions and with another recently graduated student heading off in August to compete in Worldskills 2019 Kazan, Russia.
“We’ve had a very positive relationship with AG for some years now as one of the industry leaders in outdoor paving in Northern Ireland, but this latest initiative will strengthen it and also give our enthusiastic landscaping students a stronger bridge from learning to doing.”
The manufacturer has also offered a £1,000 foundation degree bursary in 2019 to help one student begin their learning journey and embark on a career in landscape construction.