From Theresa Egba, Abuja
In order to stabilise agriculture in Nigeria the Federal Government has urged Senior Agricultural Teachers in the schools to create awareness for student to embrace practical agriculture as an entrepreneurial subject and sensitise the school community to appreciate agriculture as the only surest and most reliable form of sustainable of economic growth for national development.
Speaking yesterday in Abuja at the formal workshop with the senior Agricultural science Teachers of unity schools on enhancement and consolidation of agricultural demonstration farms in Nigerian schools, the Minister of state for education who was represented by Frank Ibezim noted that agric teachers is needed to re-establish Agricultural practice as a source for economic empowerment for the youth and also to be equipped to the capacity of producing food stuff in large scale to feed the students.
Also speaking the National Coordinator for Agricultural development scheme, Martin Ihesie noted that the programme when implemented shall increase the practical method of planting different crops, the proper timing for fertilizer application, the mode of fertilizer application to crops, the time for wedding and the proper pest control measures to be applied to the soil for maximum crop yield.
According to him, the programme shall also provide opportunity for teachers to teach students practical application required for setting up and maintaining fish ponds and determine proper feed varieties required for different ages of fishes.
“The school also shall derive joy, happiness and economic advantage of engaging in functional practical Agricultural demonstration farm that is real, physical, verifiable, noticed and felt in terms of revenue generation as well as its accurable welfare empowerment.
“Almost all the parents shall be very happy with the school authorities on this practical aspect of agricultural farming introduced to their children and make students to translate the knowledge into the family for a much better method of crop cultivation farming in their individual family farm “, he noted.
Education: 5.4m nomads out of school, says commission
From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
Executive Secretary of Nomadic Education Commission (NEC), Prof. Bashir Usman said no fewer than 5.4 million nomads of school age were currently not captured in formal education system.
While expressing worries over the development, Prof. Usman said plans are underway to strengthen the existing synergy with the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) and National Commission for Mass Education (NCME) to proffer durable solution to the ugly development.
The NEC helmsman told Daily Sun in Abuja that such partnership was critical in luring the nomads into the formal education system.
He further noted that the partnership entails encouraging NCME to take in the adult nomads, while NEC provide formal education platform for the children, to catch them young and tackle the problem of illiteracy at the root.
“We have fine-tuned some of our already running programmes for the nomads in order to bring them up to speed with developments in the 21st century technology driven world.
“Our synergy with all relevant agencies is obviously yielding the needed result as evident in impressive increase in school enrolment. Federal Government and UNESCO have also provided us with logistic support and push to return the over 15 million out of school children in Nigeria back to school,” he said.
Usman, however, maintained that the Commission was always committed to promoting peaceful co-existence between farmers and nomads through dialogue and mediation.
JAMB ends 2016/17 admission exercise
From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has concluded the 2016/2017 admission exercise for tertiary institutions, with the distribution of list of successful candidates for admission into federal institutions.
Stakeholders had at a technical meeting on 2016 admissions at the Bayero University Kano, in August, unanimously agreed that November 30 was the deadline for the admissions into tertiary institutions.
The Board, at the meeting, also promised not to temper with the list of candidates, either by addition or subtraction of names.
However, JAMB head of Information, Dr. Fabian Benjamin confirmed yesterday that the Board has lived up to responsibility, particularly in the distribution of the list of successful candidates.
“In fact, some of institutions were in our office to put finishing touches to their institution’s list. However, some private universities have appealed for extension of deadline to enable them sort out some things. The board granted the request on the condition that they must conclude all the admission exercise before the end of the year.”
JAMB spokesman said the Board accorded priority to admission guidelines: 60:40 (Science/Art) ratio for conventional and 80:20 (Science/Art) ratio for non-conventional universities; 70:30 (Technology/Non-Technology) ratio for National Diploma awarding institutions, use of 2016 JAMB UTME result printouts for all candidates that scored 180 and above, and other criteria such as quota, merit, catchment and educationally less developed states.
