The Fable of the Educational Contract

Abstract

Anatoly is one of the ‘new breed’ of Farm Advisory (Agricultural Extension) Personnel, or ‘Officers’ as they have traditionally been termed — ‘new breed’ because they are not employed as were (and in many cases still are) their previously appointed colleagues, as officers of the Department. Rather, they provide rural education through fixed term contracts, mostly of either two or three years duration. Anatoly is now coming to the end of his second two-year contract. He is grateful of the work, but finds the uncertainty of his vocational future to be a constant annoyance. The work he really enjoys, and it draws on his formative experience on a farm, as well as his degree studies in agricultural economics and farm management, and his graduate diploma in adult education.