Dominica’s agricultural sector is expected to benefit, over the next three years, from a project worth $440,000 Canadian dollars.
The money will be made available to the Agribusiness Project of the Dominica State College (DSC), which is part of the CARICOM Education for Employment Program. This program, in turn, is part of a large CAN$20 million program administered by the Association of Canadian Community Colleges(ACCC) and funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).
Speaking at a press conference on Friday, Dean of the Faculty of Education, Merrill Matthew said the project’s intention is to divert from the traditional academic tutored programs.
‘At the heart of the project is the need for the region and for Dominica State College to move away from the traditional academic supply driven programs to one that is demand driven and one where the focus is on the learners and what they need’. He said.
Matthew said that the outcome of the Project will be participant’s ability to operate at high levels of authority.
‘And Dalhousie University and Guelph University are partnering with the DSC to develop what will ultimately be a powerful vocational program in Agriculture at level three meaning that the graduates will be able to operate at supervisory levels’. He stated.
Addressing the same function, President of the DSC Dr. Donald Peters, said the project is needed with urgency.
‘It is a program that is urgently needed in Dominica and we are grateful to CIDA and Dalhousie University for providing the funding and the technical assistance to help the college shift … from a program of simply teaching to a program of building teachers by preparing students for work in the future’. He noted.
Representative of Dalhousie University Nancy Thornton, indicated that part of the training provided will be training opportunities abroad.
‘The project will see people from DSC coming to Canada there will be a number of Canadians coming here for training. We foresee the mobility of students from Dominica coming to Canada as well as Canadian students coming to here. And there’s also regional movements…there will be regional meetings at different times to develop workshops …so you may see in the future that Dominica host a regional meeting here and we’ll also be having members that will be going…we are very excited to be involved. We think the partnership is off to a good step’ she said.
There are 16 other partners across the region engaged in similar initiatives; St. Lucia is focusing on early childhood education, in Grenada they are working in the Sector of cultural industries.
Other major regional partners involved in implementing the project are: The Caricom Secretariat, the Caribbean Association of National Training Agencies (CANTA), The Association of Caribbean Tertiary Institue (ACTI) ,as well as the OECS Secretariat.
The contract was signed in late April, 2013. The project will begin this year and end in 2016.
Great opportunity for advancement and development. Hope it does help. Again availability of resources particularly land is a challenge. Arable land with good acess is a must. I wrote an article recently highlighting the problems an offering solutions. We have to take an all round approach to boosting and solving the agriculture problem. It must include land reform
This project is exciting news. Among other things, it means empowering Dominicans, potential for expanding the island’s economy, potential for employment, and overall development of the people and the island. This is great news from all angles that i look at it.
The challenge may be to recruit and keep the targeted population involved. If this population is the “youth” then, it may be an even bigger challenge to get them interested in supervisory levels of agriculture because the young people may not be as interested in agriculture as we love to think.
@ please great point u see where some people minds are on here they were asking for things like this,great initiatives were taken to put this in motion,if they don’t stop this politics, in time there will be no dominica sad to say.Seco has been asked to return to DA to answer question there is over 50 comments ma marley son got killed no one asking about that the two guys missing the lady still in guada no mention on that but gon emanuel case is some how tied to politics so they run with that.There are two emauel’s one ate food yesterday the other one six feet under dirt.
“There are two emauel’s one ate food yesterday the other one six feet under dirt.”
Very poignant.
This is a welcomed initiative. I have long opined that we need to be focusing more on agriculture in the schools. This is a great beginning to eventually see more young persons heading back into agriculture.
And what’s next? just huk
stering?