Revive interest in Agric in schools(Saturday September 8, 2012) page 19

Story: Benjamin Xornam Glover, Bolgatanga The Agriculture Educators and Trainers’ Association Of Ghana (AETAG), has called for the re-examination of the declining interest in agriculture at Senior High Schools, Colleges of Education, polytechnics and university faculties. The National President of AETAG, Mr Isaac Asiegbor said this at the association’s 24th annual general conference and workshop held at Bolgatanga in the upper east region. AETAG is a professional association of agriculture teachers at all levels. “One wonders why the interests of our youth in agriculture are not aroused at the basic and secondary school levels in our institutions but delayed to National Service time when some youth are made to go into farming as a business through the Youth In Agriculture Programme”, he said “Why are we ‘killing’ agricultural skill acquisition at the Basic and Senior High school levels only to re-surface at the time when our youth should be adopting the skills for large scale agri-business to create employment for themselves and others?”, He said although the national development plan identifies agriculture as a tool for poverty reduction and wealth creation, there appears to be no policy backing agricultural education and training to provide the type of training that will enable graduates from various levels of the education to participate in the agricultural economic activities effectively to reduce poverty. “Agricultural education deals directly with the development of agricultural human capital. But in order to do that effectively, human capital roles need to be apportioned to the various levels of the education and training system. Again society must change attitude to careers in the agricultural sector, invest capital in it for young people and consume the agricultural products emanating from the process. The absence of such a national vision produces unskilled graduates which is the recipe for unemployment”. He said Mr. Asiegbor suggested that for Agricultural Education and Training in Ghana to contribute to eradicating youth unemployment, there is the need for establishment of a National Development Plan which will spell out clearly the employment avenues and career paths at every level of agricultural training and education. He also called for the initiation of a Youth In Agriculture programme involving in-school youth to sustain their interest in profession even after school. Mr. Cletus Achaab, Upper East Regional Director of Food and Agriculture, in a speech read on his behalf by Alhaji Musbahn Ahmed, Bongo District Director of Agriculture Parental and societal attitudes also count a lot in attracting the youth into agriculture. He said there is therefore, the need for social-engineering programmes in agriculture for in-school young people to enable them generate and sustain interest in agriculture. The Deputy Upper East Regional Minister, Mrs. Lucy Awuni said that government is investing in the agriculture sector through programmes such as the Youth in Agriculture programme but although the programme has demonstrated successes in block farming and tended to increase the interest of young university graduates in farming, youth unemployment in rural areas is on the increase while rural-urban migration is on the increase. She said agriculture is not seen as business by most farmers, while agricultural production is full of drudgery and associated with low productivity. To reduce some of these constraints, she said the implementation strategies such as the Ghana Shared Growth and Development Agenda (GSGDA), 2O1O – 2013 plan has indentified the need to conduct human resource surveys and prepare human resource plans at all levels, improve and produce labour market and human resources statistics, provide adequate resources and incentives for human resource development and finally, improve remuneration structure. She therefore expressed the hope that the implementation of the above policy and many others in the GSGDA will help drive the agricultural development programmes in Ghana. -End-