Ministry seeing shift in students’ thinking towards agriculture
Thu, 05/19/2016 - 12:00am
THE Garden Project is helping to shift the thinking of persons towards the study and practice of agriculture.
This admission came recently from Director of Youth, Cleviston Hunte, as he spoke during a ceremony held in the training room of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Youth yesterday, to launch the Garden Project’s Expansion to Secondary Schools.
The project is being facilitated by the Youth Development Programme of the Division of Youth, in collaboration with the Barbados Association of Principals of Public Secondary Schools (BAPPSS), given the success of the programme at the primary school level.
Hunte pointed out the increasing interest of students in such a project. He noted that when he was growing up, any involvement in agriculture was reserved for those who did not do well in the academic arena. However, the Youth Director acknowledged that the Garden Project has helped to change this mindset.
“We have seen a situation now where we are mainstreaming agriculture across the school system and not only those persons who are considered not (to be) doing very well, but also those persons who are doing extremely well, we see that these are the persons who we need also to be involved in agriculture, because of the critical importance of agriculture as an industry and as a force for survival in the country,” he stated.
Hunte also noted that the Garden Project ties in with the goals set for the Ministry and those identified in the National Youth Policy of Barbados.
“We have significant goals which we have identified in relation to agri-preneurship and we have been able to use agriculture to bridge that gap to teach our young people not only the principles of agriculture, but also the principles of agri-preneurship,” he indicated. (RSM)