A lecturer at the Garden City University College Business School, Isaac Tweneboah-Koduah, has urged the government to adopt a workable approach to get more graduates to take up agricultural entrepreneurship.
He noted that though universities and other institutions are teaching agriculture, “what is happening in academia is not the practical aspects of it; there is a lot of theory.”
Speaking to Citi News on Friday at the 2017 Regional Delegates Congress of the National Service Personnel Association (NASPA) at Cape Coast, Mr Tweneboa-Koduah stressed that, “Agriculture is the backbone of the economy”, and that “once we get people who are educated in agriculture, we can do it better.”
He suggested that, a practicable way to entice graduates is by eliminating the fear associated with possible failures in taking up agriculture after national service, indicating that “we need people who have failed in agriculture before to talk to us, so they tell us why they failed in order for graduates to know what to do and what not to do”.
The lecturer, who was the guest speaker at the Congress, also advised companies that take interns to avail incoming graduates to the practical aspects of what is taught at school to make graduates fit the work market.
The Congress, which was on the theme ‘Youth in Agriculture: A Solution to Ghana’s Unemployment Rate’, was attended by NASPA executives from all the twenty Metropolis, Municipalities and Districts in the Central Region.
Commenting on the theme, the Regional NASPA President, Wonder Tortor, stated that “we know agriculture can end unemployment in this country if government makes people get into it” just that “graduates are not going into the industry because of the mentality we have (about agriculture)”.
He thus appealed to government to “raise that interest because agriculture is very tedious, though very lucrative at the end.”
On her part, the Central Regional acting Director of the Service, Abigail Tsogbe, announced the readiness of her outfit to contribute greatly to the Agriculture Ministry’s Planting for Food Programme, saying the National Service maize farm at Komenda, which has been dormant for some time will be revived soon “to get back to serious farming.”
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By: Joseph Ackon-Mensah/citifmonline.com/Ghana