Agricultural Studies should Be A Compulsory Course For Junior Class- University Don Laments

A Professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Ekiti State University, Don Remigius Oyebode Famiwole has decried Nigeria’s inability as a country to add value through agricultural science education and training merely because Agricultural Studies is kept optional for all students but compulsory only for science students right from junior to senior(secondary) schools be it private or public.

This, he said will allay the challenges confronting practical Agricultural education that is a pre-vocational and vocational subject in the educational system. This submission was made by Famiwole, former dean of the College of Agricultural Studies at Ekiti State University, Ado-EKiti during his 85th inaugural lecture where he also identified what Universities can do in bringing a lasting solution to the agricultural challenges facing Nigeria.

Famiwole said stopping the SDG1 will be challenging as “farmers are ageing and natural death is simply taking them away” with most of agriculture in Nigeria, especially rural locations handled by aged farmers. According to him, there are not many youths into Agriculture ready or willing (or skilled) to enter production agriculture/agri-preneurship who can replace those leaving the agricultural sector.

In a bid to remedy this, Famiwole recommended that trained and certified teachers of Agricultural Studies should be permitted to teach the subject in all secondary schools. He also recommended that school farms, should be visited periodically by the appropriate government agency and face other evaluation in order to monitor activities done on them between teachers and their students.

He, however, suggested that the Parents-Teachers Association (PTA), philanthropists and successful agro-based businessmen should contribute funds or farm resources towards schools in need of farming development. He further stressed the need for Board of Vocational and Technical Education in each state to work with other agencies of government on evaluation all pre-vocational, vocational subjects offered at secondary schools level across Nigeria.

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The guest speaker, Prof. Edward Olanipekun, the EKSU Vice Chancellor, thanked God for a worthy lecturer with such an impactful thesis and charged good people to their Setter on agricultural Studies. Olanipekun shared his personal experience, having a garden at home, and encouraged his colleagues to come out and show the world what contributions they have made toward scholarship and how their research findings could be translated into practical things that would impact society.

As such, the keynote speaker at the inaugural lecture, Professor Remigius Oyebode Famiwole, stressed that at least Agricultural Studies should be made compulsory at the secondary school level in Nigeria to address the problem of aging farmers and lack of skilled youths venturing into Agriculture.