Toi Ohomai teams up with Finnish forestry school
STUDENTS AT TOI OHOMAI ARE SET TO benefit from a close relationship struck up between the Rotorua training institution and a mechanised forestry school in Finland.
The Valtimo Forestry Machinery Training Centre in south-east Finland provides the type of skills education that Toi Ohomai (formerly the Wairakei Institute) is aiming to replicate in the Bay of Plenty.
Valtimo, which is located in a major forestry region close to the Russian border in North Karelia, is set up to provide a mix of practical training on real harvesting machines, as well as simulators and classroom tuition. It has 230 students and 40 staff, and has a total of 40 different forestry machines, including wheeled harvesters, forwarders, excavators and selfloading trucks, together with a “large” number of simulators.
Two staff members from Toi Ohomai visited Valtimo last year and returned to Rotorua with plans to replicate key features of the Finnish school, which are now in the process of being introduced.
They also invited Harri Savonen, Director of Education at the North Karelia Training Consortium, to visit Rotorua and his recent trip coincided with the New Zealand Institute of Forestry annual conference, where he gave a presentation on how the Valtimo forestry school works.
Mr Savonen explains that forestry undergraduate education is for a three-year term covering the fields of machinery operator and also equipment mechanic. Students spend the first and second years at Valtimo and the third year is largely on-the-job learning.
The school also offers vocational courses for those who are already working in the forest, to provide them with skills on machine operation.
Mr Savonen says the school develops a lot of its own training systems to be able to tailor courses for the skills required. It even engineers some of its own training equipment.
Forestry is a highly regarded career in Finland and Mr Savonen says the school has no trouble attracting students to its courses.
As part of his discussion with Toi Ohomai, he says there is also the possibility of starting a student exchange programme between the two learning institutions.
Toi Ohomai’s Head of Primary Industries, Science and Environment, Linton Winder, told the conference that forestry tuition in New Zealand needed to change to meet the modern demands of the industry, with a focus on mechanisation.
“We’ve been inspired by what Harri and his team are doing in Finland and although we’ve made a start, we still have a long way to go,” he says.
The arrival of simulators at Toi Ohomai had provided a boost to how students were being taught and these have recently been joined by a real Caterpillar tracked loader, purchased with the assistance of forest managers, PF Olsen, which Mr Winder describes as a “game changer”.
“Students gaining practical skills with the simulators and machine will come out 60-to70% ready to work in a crew,” he says.
Mark Preece, Sector Manager with Competenz, told the conference that his organisation recognises the rapid advancement in technology and his organisation has been making changing to ensure it keeps pace.
Similarly, David Evison, from the University of Canterbury’s School of Forestry covered changes that are being implemented to attract more students for its forest management and forest engineering courses.
NZL