TEDMAG and Partners Rehabilitate Science, Computer Labs for Ohawu Agric College

The Technical Education Development to Modernize Agriculture in Ghana (TEDMAG) and the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) have handed over a fully rehabilitated and retooled Science and Computer Laboratory to the Ohawu Agriculture College at Ohawu in the Ketu North Municipality of the Volta region.

The project which cost 15 million Canadian Dollars was implemented by MOFA in all five colleges of agriculture in the country through the TEDMAG program and other agencies with funding from the Global Affairs Canada and the Canadian High Commission in Ghana. It is a consortium of the University of Missouri US and the University of Saskatchewan Canada Assistant Program.

The TEDMAG program has two focal areas which include – the upgrading and retooling of infrastructure in all five colleges of agriculture in the country to support and improve teaching outcomes with focus on ICT, Science, Home Sience and Library support in some cases.

The program seeks to improve or upgrade the curriculum of agric colleges in Ghana – curriculum that trains extension agents in the country and supports their tutors to teach the revised curriculum.

The program also works with the extension services at the various departments of agriculture at the district level to revise and upgrade extension delivery mechanisms with a gender sensitive approach.

Speaking at a ceremony to officially hand over the facilities to the college on Thursday November 24, deputy Director of Operations at the Canadian High Commission, Madam Louise Paris, said the High Commission is working hand in hand with MOFA as part of a bigger drive to expand and modernize agriculture education in Ghana.

“We are looking for innovative ways that will benefit the students and equip them with practical agriculture management skills, and to improve agriculture marketing, value chain and sustainable services,” She said.

Madam Paris said, under a program dubbed Modernizing Agriculture in Ghana (MAG) implemented by the Technical Education Development for Modernized Agriculture in Ghana (TEDMAG), the Canadian government has provided a CAD$125m grant facility to the government of Ghana to help modernize the agriculture sector with special focus on women in agriculture as a way of reducing hunger, poverty and inequality in our societies.

She called on relevant institutions to design flexible policies that will make Colleges of agriculture attractive, especially for women/girls to increase enrollment.

Director of Human Resource and Development at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Lawoete Tettey,  lauded the initiative saying it is a game changer as far as agriculture programming and development in the country is concerned.

He said the Ministry is looking forward to a change or upliftment in the level of education and exposure students will gain from the new infrastructure and curriculum with the hope that it will improve their learning outcomes.

“We are looking forward to them having new experience that is relevant to facilitate market-oriented agriculture in the country-so that they don’t only come out with classroom knowledge but go into practical agriculture as well which will inure to the benefit of the entire country,” he said.

Principal of Ohawu Agric College, Ernest Abiew, expressed gratitude to TEDMAG, the Canadian High Commission, MOFA and other partners for the gesture and promised to make maximum use of the facility to improve teaching and learning outcomes.

He said the college had several challenges including inadequate classroom blocks and hostel facilities especially for female students and a dilapidated place of convenience (toilet), acute water shortages and appealed for further support to address these challenges which he said is hampering smooth academic work in the college.

By Leo Nelson