The Federal Government on Tuesday has given the mandate to all federal agricultural universities in the nation to discard all social sciences programs they are offering. Removal of courses that are not relevant to agriculture would be helpful, as the institutions become tools for the nation’s agricultural development.
It also directed that all students of the institution offering agricultural related courses, from 200 Level to final year should own a farm. It instructed the governing councils of these institutions to make graduation based on the margins of 60% practical and 40% theoretical.
These directives were given by The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh to members of the governing councils of the universities at a meeting held in his office in Abuja. He believes that there is a desperate need to train young and educated farmers who will feed the nation in the coming years.
Addressing the Vice Chancellors, he further added that no student should be admitted into Federal Universities of Agriculture who has no interest in farming. Such students should seek admission elsewhere.
He expressed consciousness about the uncertainties of the future of those who have already started out in such courses at the institution. He claims they would not be scraping out those courses immediately but that the universities should try to phase them out.
He unveiled that Ministry of Agriculture had already set into gear efforts to remodel the three universities into centers of excellence of global reckoning by guaranteeing that the institutional structures that are already engraved in the constitutional for effective management should be placed without any adjournment.
