News

Many professionals spend years building valuable skills, knowledge and leadership capability on the job. For Silver Fern Farms employees Ricky Fife and Susan Dunn, those years of experience became the foundation for earning a degree.

Looking back on their learning journey, they see more than assignments, deadlines and late nights. They see an opportunity to turn what they had already achieved in the workplace into a formal qualification.

Their story shows how work-based learning can provide a practical pathway to degree-level study, helping professionals gain academic recognition while continuing to grow their careers.

Turning real-world experience into academic success

Before beginning their studies, Ricky and Susan had already developed extensive expertise through their roles at Silver Fern Farms. Years of practical experience had given them valuable insights, leadership skills and a strong understanding of their industry.

Capable NZ's work-based learning approach enabled them to build on that foundation. Instead of repeating learning they had already gained through their work, they were able to demonstrate how their existing knowledge and achievements aligned with degree-level outcomes.

This created a more direct pathway to an undergraduate qualification, allowing their professional accomplishments to contribute towards formal academic success.

Accelerating career progression

For many professionals, a degree can open doors to new opportunities, increased responsibility and future leadership roles. However, finding the time to study while balancing work and family commitments can be challenging.

Work-based learning offers a practical solution by recognising learning that has already occurred in the workplace. Rather than starting from scratch, learners can focus on demonstrating their expertise and reflecting on their professional practice.

For Ricky and Susan, this meant achieving a qualification in a way that complemented their existing responsibilities while supporting their future career goals.

The organisational advantage

For organisations, work-based learning is a practical way to build capability without taking people away from the workplace. It creates pathways for career progression, strengthens succession planning and helps develop future leaders from within. The Silver Fern Farms experience shows how investing in employee development can drive stronger outcomes for both employees and the organisation.

Real pathways. Real results.

Ricky and Susan's journey demonstrates that there is more than one way to achieve a degree.

By using their professional experience as a foundation for learning, they were able to gain a qualification that reflected the knowledge and skills they had already developed throughout their careers.

Their story is a reminder that learning happens every day in the workplace, and that with the right pathway, that learning can lead to formal qualifications and new opportunities.

Join our webinar

Could your workplace experience help you achieve a degree faster?

In this 20-minute webinar, we'll show how experienced professionals can turn their existing skills and knowledge into undergraduate qualifications through work-based learning. Using real learner stories, you'll discover how recognising prior learning can reduce study time, accelerate qualification outcomes and support workforce development.

Join us to see how experience can become a degree.