The Gordon’s conservation and land management courses will equip you with comprehensive skills and knowledge to enter natural resources industries. This course offers a range of streams to enable you to specialise in an area of natural resource management that meets your career needs. The streams include general land management, conservation earthworks, community co-ordination and facilitation, indigenous land management, lands, parks and wildlife, natural area restoration, weed management and vertebrate pest management. The land management stream will generally be conducted with units in other streams being included on demand. The Certificate III in Conservation and Land Management offers comprehensive training in work crew membership and leader/supervisory roles. Graduates will be equipped to work in national or state parks with conservation groups, State Government authorities or contractors.
The Gordon Institute of TAFE grew out of the need for technical training in the brave new world of the 1800s industrial age. From its origins as a mechanics institute and a night school for tradespeople, the Gordon has become the embodiment of quality vocational education and training in Geelong and beyond.
During the late 1800s, Geelong's increasing importance as an industrial centre, along with a worrying overseas trend showing Britain was losing its traditional markets to the United States and Europe, spurred leading Geelong citizens to campaign for greater technical training. However, it was another overseas event that hastened the Gordon's development.
The heroic exploits of British general Charles Gordon had captured Geelong's imagination. His death during the siege of Khartoum in Africa prompted calls for a memorial. One proposal, backed by a military battalion brass band, suggested a statue but others wanted something more meaningful. What better memorial could there be, it was said, for a man whose life was devoted to civic duty and, especially, to the education of the disadvantaged, than a vocational institute?
Since opening in 1887, in a single-storied hall and operating mainly night classes for tradespeople, the Gordon has developed into an institution operating across five campuses. The Gordon offers 220 nationally recognised courses in seven teaching schools, as well as 240 specialist courses exploring a wide range of career options. There is an annual enrolment of 26,000 students.