By Ewoenam Kpodo
Ohawu (VR), Aug 10, GNA – Mr Ernest Abiew, Principal, Ohawu Agricultural College (OAC) in the Ketu North Municipality, has appealed to Ghana Education Trust (GET) Fund to consider extending supports to agricultural colleges in the country.
The Fund, established in 2000, provides funding to support the delivery of quality education at all levels to Ghanaian citizens while also supporting other important areas of the country’s educational setup.
Agricultural colleges are training institutions established in the country to equip students with the requisite theoretical and practical knowledge and skills needed to go into farming and/or be frontline staff to disseminate information on modern agricultural technologies to farmers to boost production in a bid to transform Ghana into a modern and productive player in the global economy through agriculture.
While the Fund had among others been instrumental in infrastructural development at basic, second-cycle and tertiary levels, Mr Abiew said none of the about six agricultural colleges in the country ever benefited from GETFUND, and that it was time government did something about that decision.
He spoke to Ghana News Agency on the sidelines of a launch of a programme “Post-Harvest Mechanisation Training Programme” at the college sponsored by World Food Programme in partnership with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Ghana National Service Scheme and Chamber of Agribusiness Ghana.
The Principal said financial support to the colleges was needed to develop them into centres of excellence with dynamic and demand-driven training programmes to produce transformational leaders in agriculture and agribusiness in Ghana and beyond.
He said OAC for example, since its establishment nearly 60 years ago, had never seen any new project/structure, except one (uncompleted) and appealed to the government, corporate organisations and philanthropists to come to the aid of the college.
“OAC is faced with a lot of challenges. Accommodation for tutors and students, especially females is an issue. Currently, three masters share one bungalow. When we talk of a place of convenience which is crucial, no, it’s not in a good shape.
“We had to convert our dining hall to a lecture hall and that also has its own implications because students now carry their food, move around to eat. We have just one drilled mechanised borehole. Anytime it develops a fault, we have no other source of potable water. The infrastructural deficit is really having a toll on us,” he said.
Mr Abiew also talked about logistics including machinery to give practical training to students, noting the ones in place were inadequate while others had become obsolete.
He was, however, grateful for the choice of the college for the six-week intensive programme to train the 250 young agricultural engineering graduates and hoped the machinery brought to the college as part of the programme would augment the existing ones and would in the end, support OAC in equipping its students with the skills needed to impact agricultural production.
GNA