Agricultural Educational Training Programme, (AETP), has been flagged off for select pilot schools across Anambra State.
The AETP initiative is organized by the Universal Basic Education Commission, UBEC in collaboration with Anambra State Universal Basic Education Board, ASUBEB.
The flag-off took place at the Utility Hall of ASUBEB in Awka, with Head Teachers, Principals and other education stakeholders as participants.
The training featured practical sessions on various aspects of agricultural practices which include, Crop farming, poultry farming and fish farming with the participants getting answers to questions on some grey areas.
In her keynote address, the Executive Chairman, Anambra State Universal Basic Education Board, ASUBEB Awka, Associate Professor Vera Nwadinobi explained that the AETP initiative is aimed at making agricultural science more practical-oriented, providing requisite skills and inspiring entrepreneurial interest at the Basic Education level.
Associate Professor Nwadinobi remarked that Governor Chukwuma Soludo is doing well in the state agricultural sector through the provision of palm and coconut seedlings to households across the state, to open channels of income when they start fruiting.
She also revealed that the programme would not be possible if the governor did not approve the state’s counterpart funding for it, as she noted that the Governor cleared three years backlog for the programme to happen.
Associate Professor Nwadinobi urged the participants who are head teachers and principals to step the training down to their various schools, so that children can take up agriculture as an interest, advocating the introduction of agricultural quiz competition and farming at the schools to further elicit the children’s interest.
In her address, the Director, Department of Academic Services, Mrs Ngozi Enendu, said that the pilot schools for the programme will be starting with crop farming, poultry and fishery.
Mrs Enendu pointed out that the learners are expected to be actively involved from the beginning of the project, to the harvest period during which the enterprise part of the AETP ensures that money realized from the proceeds is invested for continuity of the project in the schools.
Earlier in an opening remark, the ASUBEB Agric Desk Officer, Mrs Kate Oguejiofor pointed out that the school-to-farm initiative focuses on introducing pupils and students in primary and junior secondary schools, to the practical aspects of agriculture and to inculcate in them the desire to make farming a source of livelihood.
