Agric teachings should focus on middle level personnel – Minister
Mr Mark Owen Woyongo, Upper East Regional Minister on Wednesday said Agriculture education and training should focus on middle level personnel required for the sector.
Mr Woyongo said that held the key in harnessing the socio economic development of the country would be to develop the human capital needed for the implementation of all policies and programmes.
The Regional Minister said this when addressing the 24th annual conference of Agricultural Educators and Trainers Association of Ghana (AETAG) in Bolgatanga where they discussed the challenges affecting the teaching, learning and training of agriculture in the country.
The event on the theme, “the relevance of Agricultural Education and training in Youth Employment, Mr Woyongo said the challenge of low level human resource base in the agriculture sector continued to hamper productivity but well structured strategies could identify the strengths and weaknesses and the resources required to develop them.
It was in this regard, he said, the ‘Better Ghana Agenda’ placed a premium on youth development and that government set up the youth in agricultural programme to create practical learning opportunities for young people in agriculture.
Mr Isaac Asiegbor, AETAG President, said the tertiary agricultural education which propelled the pre-tertiary education system continued to focus on developing research scientist despite the challenges faced in the agricultural value chain landscape that demanded new types of human capital for national development.
“The vision of Dr Kwame Nkrumah which focused on development of agricultural research scientist to man the agricultural research institutes under the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research still drives agricultural education at the tertiary level of education in Ghana today,” Mr Asiegbor said.
He said the decline of the student’s interest in pursuing agriculture at the senior high level, colleges of education, polytechnics and the university faculties should be re-examined since they were aroused at the basic levels but rather declined later.
Mr Asiegbor said though the national development plans identified agriculture as a tool for poverty reduction and wealth creation, it appeared that there was no policy direction to the type of education and training needed to enable graduates from all levels of education to participate in the agricultural economic activities effectively.
He said the absence of a national vision produced unskilled graduates which were a recipe for unemployment and urged that human capital be apportioned to various levels of education and training systems.
He called on people to change their attitude toward agricultural careers and make investment efforts for the youth to go into the field.
Reverend Vincent Addo, an Executive Member of Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), in a solidarity message urged AETAG to make the agriculture based subjects much more interesting and appealing so that students would feel the need to start a venture without any inhibitions.
Source: GNA