While many parents are desperate to get their children into a university after matric, a Cape Winelands farmer is hoping his son will learn how to track wild animals and identify birds by their call. The fruit and vegetable farmer from Ceres will be forking out R120, 000 to enrol his son at South Africa's first formal bush school, near Upington in the Northern Cape, set to open next year.The Academy for Environmental Leadership will offer post-matriculants wanting to take a gap year an opportunity to study conservation biology, ecotourism and personal leadership development.The one-year programme - aimed at instilling an understanding of environmental issues - will be conducted by environmentalist Dave Pepler, the academic head of the school.Besides the theoretical studies, students will learn to trap small mammals and mark them for population studies, as well as to identify trees.They will also learn to spot an animal from its tracks and a bird from its call and understand the weather from clues in the veld.Students will also be exposed to off-road driving skills.story_article_left1The academy was born after advocate Fef le Roux, a former chairman of private-school company Curro Holdings, went on a trip to Uganda with Pepler to view mountain gorillas in 2013.When they returned to South Africa, the first blueprint was roughly sketched in a notebook.The campus, which is situated at Uizip, where the Kalahari meets the Gariep River, has a swimming pool, sports fields, gym, library, laboratory, social room and an organic garden.The academy's chief executive, Gys Botha, confirmed that the Ceres farmer had paid a deposit to secure his son's place at the school next year.The man's son had said that "joining the academy was a constructive thing to do rather than going overseas for a year or staying at home and lying around without doing anything", said Botha.He said they were busy with the process of registering the school with the Department of Higher Education and "negotiating with Stellenbosch University to assist us with our programme on personal leadership".Botha said graduates from the academy would be equipped with life skills to make informed decisions on environmental issues. He said potential jobs for students graduating from the academy included becoming environmental officers, research assistants, conservation officers, ecotourism planners and game farm managers.The R120, 000 annual fee includes board and lodging...