"If you have a goal, you can achieve it."

Some variation of this has been repeated in just about every high school graduation speech ever delivered. 

Thanks to the flexibility of the South Australian Certificate of Education (SACE), it is now true for more students than ever before.

Gladstone High School senior Lachlan Hansen grew up on a property near Georgetown and has always dreamed of one day taking over the family farm.

Last year, he took a fundamental step towards achieving that goal when he completed his Certificate III in Agriculture.

At the beginning of Year 12, he had 150 spare credits but decided to come back to school and take on a full workload so he can get an ATAR. It's a backstop, he says, just in case he needs to further his studies one day. 

Lachlan knows all too well how much formal education can help with applied learning. Thanks to the SACE, he now has a lot stronger understanding of the basics of farming.

"(On the farm) you obviously learn by trial and error...but it just got a lot more in depth into things I already know in a way," he explained.

"Like, one example is crop agronomy, you learn about how year to year certain things affect the crop and what fertilisers you can use to help fight against that and how to apply it and when to apply it and what can happen if you use it in the wrong ways," he continued.

His Year 12 subjects are also helping him gain valuable skills he will need if he's to one day become the third generation of the Hansen family to run the property.

"A massive part of owning a farm is running a business so there's the whole accounting and financial aspect of it," Lachlan said.

"By coming back and doing Year 12 and taking up Accounting through Open Access College and doing General Mathematics, it has definitely helped me broaden my understanding of accounting and how financial stuff works," he said.

"Design and Technology has also helped me to gain some skills that I can use out in the workforce in a low pressure environment."