The Executive Chairman of Enugu State Universal Basic Education Board, Associate Professor Hyginus Banko Okibe, today flagged off the Agricultural Education Training Programme (AETP) 2024 Action Plan for the 1st-4th Quarters at ESPIN Hall in ENSUBEB premises.
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During the programme, the Executive Chairman charged the School-Based Management Committee alongside the Headteachers to take the training seriously and ensure compliance and sustainability of the programme.
He reiterated that Agriculture as one of the subject offered at the basic education level is meant to to expose learners to vocational studies and entrepreneurship .
The ENSUBEB Boss enumerated the objectives of the AETP, which include making agricultural science more practically oriented and hands-on at the basic education level.
The training, according to him, will provide learners with the requisite skills to stimulate self-employment and promote the dignity of labour and self-esteem among Learners.
Assoc. Prof Okibe maintained that we are moving from a conventional farm to a smart farm with the injection of technology for greater yield. According to him, it gives joy to see one’s own fruit of labour forming part of living a healthy life and promoting wealth creation for sustainable economic development.
He therefore urged the participants drawn from various schools in Enugu East Senatorial Zone to be serious with the training for food safety and knowledge of the content, and be ready to train others and see how the knowledge can be imparted to the children to make them run away from robbery and fraudulent activities.
He further stated that agriculture adds value to both society and the environment, noting that smart farming is fast taking over the agricultural space; hence, the era of high heap is gone. He therefore encouraged them to imbibe the culture of practicing agriculture and also share ideas collectively.
In her own speech, the Permanent Member 3 of the Board, Dr. Nwakaego Aja, talked on empowering children through skill acquisition for sustainable development. She said that experiential learning is the thing now in the country.
According to her, the training will spur them to think of better ways and ideas on how to solve some agricultural problems in the community.
Dr. Aja maintained that teaching is child-centered, where the children are carried along in all the activities to enable them to participate effectively and source materials when needed to solve their problems and create new innovations. She urged the instructors to build the children’s skills through Agriculture; hence, it will help to stop exam malpractice when the child can be useful to himself and be independent with money made from farming.
She encouraged the Head teachers and the School-Based Management Committee Chairman to help provide the land and sustain it in the various schools.
The Desk Officer, Mrs Juliana Ugwuanyi, encouraged all the participants to open an agric account for the school where they will keep the empowerment money that the government will give to them, noting that all expenses and income will be duly checked to ensure continuity. She notified the participants that 60 schools were selected from Enugu East Zone, while 50 schools will deal with crop farming, and the remaining 10 smart schools will deal with fishery because they have a source of water to sustain the fish.