Agricultural analysts and consultants have charged the managements of other universities to emulate Landmark University, Omu Aran, Kwara State in offering free tuition fees for all agricultural courses in the 2018/2019 session.
A senior lecturer, Department of Soil Science and Land Resources Management, Faculty of Agriculture, Obafemi Awolowo University, Prof. Adeagbo Amusan, told our correspondent that while the innovation of Landmark University was expected to boost the diversification efforts of the Federal Government, especially in the agricultural sector, participation of more schools in the scheme would impact more on the sector.
He said, “Over the past few years, we have been having significant reduction in the number of students that are choosing various courses in agriculture as their first choice.
“Students will normally focus their attention on Medicine, Nursing, Management and Accounting, Electrical Electronics, Computer Engineering and other professional courses, treating agriculture as a ‘no go area’ because the impression of many people to students doing agriculture is that it is meant for planting cassava, maize, rearing sheep and goat; whereas, it is much more than that with the development of Bio-Technology.”
According to him, a lot of students always have the mind of changing their course from agriculture to other courses once they get to 200-Level but the technique now used in some schools to encourage them is that Professors should take up low level courses in the faculty so that their experience can be used to encourage these students and it has been working well.
“It is embarrassing that a country of over 170 million people has to depend on importation of food like rice, maize, wheat and it is a drain on our economy. So, this initiative will encourage many students and now that entrepreneurship in agriculture has been produced in value chain, definitely, many of these students will not regret it,” he added.
The Programme Manager, Lagos State Agricultural Development Authority, Dr. Pereira Sheteolu, explained that other universities should borrow the idea and government should support the universities that are into such initiative for consistency.
He said, “Financially, they have the capacity. Three other universities across other geo-political zones can emulate the action and before you know it, hundreds of youth have been empowered to be employers of labour in the sector.
“Most private universities are set up for profit making and if you are setting up such a programme for free, they could get grants from international or local agencies. Some state governments can also partner with their universities to boost the sector in their states.”
