Employment and mobility of graduates from African agricultural colleges and universities

17 - 19 August 2015. Accra, Ghana. FARA Secretariat. A three-day workshop on the eCapacities™ facility was held with the main objective of equipping representative staff from the demand-side (of labor markets) partner organizations with the know-how for effective management and administration of the eCapacities™ platform.

The eCapacities™ is a web-based interactive platform to aid strategic human capital formation in agriculture. Further, it has an integrated knowledge portal that provides linked-in information about capacity strengthening initiatives and the people involved. An important component of the eCapacities™ is the African student/graduate tracking feature, which will afford online employment and mobility tracking of graduates from African agricultural colleges and universities. Specifically, the feature will create online profiles, track graduates, provide them with access to job opportunities, access mentor networks and obtain access to other databases and networks. Moreover, the graduate tracking information gathered by eCapacities™ will be of benefit to tertiary agricultural institutes for internal quality assurance, in-house monitoring of students’ academic progress and accreditation by government regulatory agencies in the education sector.

The workshop participants were drawn mainly from Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Uganda and Zambia. The specific organizations in these countries represented in the training include FARA Secretariat, the sub-regional research organizations (ASARECA and CCARDESA), Ministries of Agriculture, national agricultural research organizations, agribusiness agencies, technical training institutes, and National Chambers of Commerce and Industry.