The Canje Secondary School’s Agriculture Science programme is to be improved through a collaboration among the ministries of education, agriculture and finance.
According to a Ministry of Education (MoE) press release, the first step toward this endeavour began on Thursday with a working meeting and a visit to the school by the Minister of Education, Dr Nicolette Henry; Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), Delma Nedd, and technical officers from both ministries. Henry acknowledged that she had visited the school before and realised that a lot more could be done given proper support. She noted that there is funding available that can be used to support such programmes in schools and it was decided that starting with Canje Secondary School, schools with farms that can be expanded would be assisted. Permanent Secretary of the MoA, Delma Nedd, stated that the project is one that can benefit both ministries. She disclosed that under the Rural Agricultural Infrastructural Development (RAID) Project, her Ministry aims to have projects done by communities. She added that there is provision for model farms in the project and the first model farm is at President’s College, with the idea being to have model farms in some schools so that students from other schools can visit and see how that can be replicated.
Nedd said that the purpose of the school visit was to conduct an assessment and figure out ways in which her Ministry can add value in terms of agriculture. She noted that the aim is to develop a more detailed farm school using resources, tool kits and accessories. She added, “We want to make Canje Secondary School a central agriculture basis for schools in this region to see how you can upscale agriculture particularly in a modernised way.”
Head of the Agriculture Science Department of the school, Thelson Williams expressed his pleasure at the school being selected to benefit from the partnership and support and asserted that his school is willing and committed to the agriculture programme, the release added.
