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Gina Dal Santo: VET Teacher/Trainer of the Year Award Finalist

Gina Dal Santo is a cheese enthusiast who’s made a career out of bringing that passion to others. A founding cheesemaker and lecturer at The Artisan Cheese Making Academy Australia (ACMAA), which operates as part of TAFE SA, Gina received the Dairy Industry Association Manufacturing Scholarship in 2011 and Winston Churchill Fellowship in 2015 for her efforts to improve educational opportunities in artisanal cheesemaking in Australia.

Gina is also one of many industry volunteers who helped develop new qualifications in cheesemaking, brewing, distilling, and fermenting as part of the Artisanal Food and Beverage Project managed by Skills Impact on behalf of the Food and Beverage Industry Reference Committee. The most recent feather in her cap is being a finalist for the VET Teacher/Trainer of the Year Award at the Australian Training Awards, which recognises excellence and initiative in training, a focus on learner needs, and a commitment to VET teaching and learning.

Gina entered the VET sector as a student, looking to further her career. Little did she know it would lead her to becoming a trainer herself. “I chose a path I enjoyed, that being food science and technology,” says Gina. “From there I started to do a little teaching to help lecturers, found I liked teaching and I started to enjoy one particular field – that being cheese.”

At that time no national qualification existed specifically for cheesemaking and Gina had to work with the Certificate III in Food Processing to try to meet student and industry needs. Still, Gina recognised VET as the perfect place to train future artisan cheese makers. At each stage of the process cheese and the raw products need to look or smell a certain way, so skills are developed through observation, experience and practice. A national VET qualification would support the practical style of learning required, offer recognition of skills within the industry and better access to training where the skills were needed.

Gina dal Santo at work at the Artisan Cheesemaking Academy Australia

Gina was inspired to enter the training awards by her students, whose successes reflect her own hard work and passion for VET teaching and cheese. Winning the South Australian VET Training or Teacher of the Year award and then being a finalist for the National Award has been an exciting and rewarding experience for Gina.

“The journey has been amazing. Rediscovering myself while writing the application, the nervousness in the interview, the nerves waiting to go on stage was quite unbearable. The anticipation on stage I cannot even begin to explain. Then having my name called out was the best reward for my work I have ever received. Since then, doing radio interviews, talking to people about my experience, the networking – it’s all making my teaching feel complete and I love being the SA Trainer ambassador.”

It’s thanks to a range of people, including experts like Gina who give voice to their industry, that Skills Impact can revise and/or develop skills standards to meet industry needs. Gina has championed the art of cheesemaking in the VET sector and the results have paid off. With the new national Diploma of Artisan Cheesemaking on the way, there’s a great future for training in the industry and more work to be done from Gina’s perspective. “I want to continue to grow the cheese education. I want to put SA on the map for cheese education. In doing this, I would like to have a succession plan for me being on the factory floor, so I can perhaps move to a management role and drive the growth.”