Chief Executive Officer of the Barbados Entrepreneurship Foundation, Celeste Foster.
NVQ agriculture project gets under way
Thu, 10/27/2016 - 12:00am
TOO few persons are being trained to meet the demands of the agricultural sector.
In its efforts to address this, the Barbados Entrepreneurship Foundation (BEF) has introduced a National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) Schools Agricul-ture Entrepreneurship Project, which aims to
encourage interest in the sector to promote innovation, increase entrepreneurial opportunities and increase food security.
Pointing out that a mere 50 tertiary students graduate with such degrees annually, Chief Executive Officer of the BEF Celeste Foster painted the picture occurring at the Barbados Community College and the Samuel Jackman Prescod Polytechnic.
“Enrolment for the Barbados Community College’s Associate Degree in Agriculture Studies occurs bi-annually; approx-imately 20 students started the two and a half year programme in September 2016. The next enrolment cycle will be in 2018. The Samuel Jackman Prescod Polytechnic offers four courses annually with relatively low uptake of less than 75 persons in total. The Diploma in Agriculture Studies is a two-year programme with an average of 16 students per cohort. The Certificate courses in Animal Husbandry, Landscaping and Crop Production, usually attract less than 20 persons each,” she noted.
Thirty students therefore from six secondary schools – St. George, St. Leonard’s, Alleyne, Ellerslie, Grantley Adams and Daryll Jordan – will be participating in the year-long NVQ project, at the end of which will see those successful gain their certification in agriculture.
The programme contains three elements including a school-to-work programme where students will be released from school at least one day a week for training and practical assignments, and a Business Proposal Pitch at the end of the training where students will get to pitch their business proposals and have them critiqued by industry professionals.
The first component of summer camps, with the Youth Entrepreneurship Scheme’s Camp Enterprise, the Inter-American Institute for Co-operation on Agriculture’s Youth Farm and the Ministry of Agriculture’s Youth Entrepreneurship Camp, was completed over the last summer break. The programme was launched on Monday at the Cave Hill School of Business of the University of the West Indies. (JMB)