Agriculture education in Africa over the years has become a major topic for discussion. This conversation should take a different tum where solutions are being suggested. Universities in Africa need to change their approach to pedagogy in agriculture education if they are to produce graduates who can contribute to sustainable Agricultural production and food consumption patterns on the continent.
The institutions need to shift their approach to delivering education from theory to experiential and participatory learning. Emphasis should be put on learning as opposed to teaching. This has proved to work in most parts of the work and African Universities can learn from this.
The switch from teaching to learning has the potential to transform agriculture in a scientifically viable manner. The change in pedagogy would also allow students to discover learning.
More emphasis should be on research and students should become more experimental if we want to succeed in producing agriculture graduates that can change things in the agricultural sector. We should also involve students in research as undergraduates. Students should be sent for internships in the private sector and combine this with a stint in community service. This will encourage students to want to become professional in agriculture.
Using such new methodologies will raise students’ interest in agriculture even more, and aid in producing graduates with entrepreneurial capability. Universities globally, have a lot of answers, including technologies they had invented that could help solve challenges facing food systems. These new approaches in graduate training have been effective in raising youth interest in agriculture in Latin America.
By the late 1980s, when EARTH University was founded, for example, youth interest in farming was as low as it currently is in Africa, and attracting the young into the field may have contributed to the region becoming a major exporter of food while Africa remains a notable importer. Academic institutions are the best suited to produce a quick change in the world. When we transform universities, we will also transform the world.
For universities to effectively participate in finding sustainable solution to Africa’s food challenges, they will need to adopt a trans-disciplinary approach to research, encompassing all disciplines of relevant sciences. We need to take advantage of the coming together of different disciplines to co-create new knowledge and capitalize on biosciences and other rapidly expanding sciences for a radical transformation of food systems in Africa.
The challenge of finding solutions to sustainable food systems was not a sectorial issue thus there is a need for people from different disciplines to come together if radical transformation were to be achieved. We should encourage public discussion on reforming food systems for the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals. Universities should maintain a focus on working together across sectors and disciplines. Universities are well placed to provide both the facilities and facilitation needed for research if adequately supported.
Governments, the private sector, and farmer communities need multi-stakeholder platforms that develop, adapt, and share information and develop the capacity for good agricultural practices.
Universities should prioritize extension and advisory services education to produce holistic graduates who can act as change agents.
Agricultural education is one of the main areas that will boost the agricultural sector. In that, the sector is under-developed because of the little knowledge folks have in the sector. It is very imperative and ideal that more be covered on agriculture in our institutions of higher education.
The youth should also be encouraged to study agriculture to increase the knowledge base of the country in the sector. Most graduates who focused on other courses they are enthusiastic about can be encouraged to take up short courses in agriculture.
One would ask why the youth are not interested in agriculture. Why are there so many unemployed graduates in the country when there is vast land to be cultivated? This is the situation because our higher institutions and government do not put emphasis on the need to study agriculture and the benefits of doing so. Government should be able to provide scholarships and stipends to students interested in agriculture to attract more of the youth to study and take career paths in agriculture.
In conclusion, changing the traditional higher education training model to a collaborative student-centered learning model is essential to the production of the critical mass of change agents for the achievement of sustainable healthy food systems.
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