UNIVERSITY courses will be available for agriculture students at Wangaratta TAFE next year and nursing degree courses could follow soon after that.
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Horticulture and wine technology degrees are being investigated too.
Charles Sturt University yesterday released details of its Wangaratta “regional university centre” to be housed on the city’s Goulburn Ovens TAFE campus in Tone Road.
The university intends to invest $8 million in building federally funded facilities at the rear of the TAFE campus, near the former IBM factory, by 2014.
TAFE students completing diploma courses in dairy management could move to study a bachelor degree in agricultural business management or agriculture next year.
CSU Albury-Wodonga head of campus Sue Moloney and colleague Associate Professor Ben Wilson released details of their plans when they met Wangaratta mayor Roberto Paino and councillors yesterday.
They made it clear that agriculture and nursing would only be the start of CSU’s drive to make tertiary education more available from Wangaratta.
Professor Wilson, head of CSU’s School of Environmental Sciences, said the plan was to have up to 400 students at Wangaratta by 2017.
Under the pathways system, a student completing a diploma would receive 1.5 years of credit towards the bachelor course they could undertake through distance education.
Ms Moloney said Wangaratta was in a region under-serviced by universities and with low higher education but strong TAFE participation rates.