Choosing for agricultural studies starts at secondary school level

19 April 2014. Release of the educational movie, called "Going for Agric, Harvesting Magic".The film was made for the Faculty of Agriculture and Environment of Gulu University, Northern Uganda, within the framework of a NUFFIC-funded project supported by ICRA.

 This educational movie is part of a promotional package program for classes or any group of secondary school students that are the crossroads of choices to be made for school subjects and future studies.


Going for Agric, Harvesting Magic (full version) door moovon

The percentage of women students being very low, the Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture and Environment wants to change this situation. To reach this objective there is a need for girls:

1. to become more interested in agriculture by seeing that you have good career perspectives with agriculture and 
2. to be in well prepared for choosing agricultural studies at the University.

The film aims at encouraging girls to do sciences in high schools, as this is the precondition to enter the Faculty. To address the first challenge, secondary level students of Central High School in Gulu have been proposed to make a tour in the University bus to encounter women role models, most of them alumni of the University, to have a better idea of what one can do having done agricultural studies.

The film follows these students while they visit different women:

• Dorah' at her farm; 
• Juliet in her agricultural inputs shop, 
• another Juliet as extension worker, 
• Moreen, a loan processing officer in the Centenary bank, 
• Gloria and Pauline researchers at Ngetta, 
• Lilian an information officer and 
• Harriet who is a lecturer at Gulu University. 

While exchanging with the women role models and expressing their worries, the students gradually change their perceptions and opinions, which will allow them to make well informed decisions about their future.

Related:
22/04/2014. SciDev A three-step strategy for African education. 
Africa needs a better strategy for fashioning its education system to steer development. It should adopt a three-tiered model to achieve this. Since low enrolment and high dropout rates are common in the formal basic education system in many African countries, the key first layer should focus on giving students the skills they need to provide generic solutions and services to help reduce absolute poverty. It would also involve lessons on hygiene, water issues, environmental management and food production.