A university don and professor of Measurement and Evaluation, Prof. Clifford Moses Amini, has expressed serious concern over lack of interest by the people of Bayelsa State to enroll in Agriculture-related programmes.
Amini, who is the centre director of Yenagoa Study Centre of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, in a chat with NOUN News on Wednesday in his office said that it was very sad to note that Agricultural discipline records a very negligible enrolment in an agrarian environment like Bayelsa State.
“I had expected to see a large number of students pursuing Agriculture and Agriculture-related programmes in our study centre here, given that Bayelsa State is largely an agrarian environment. Whether you talk about crop farming or fishery, even animal husbandry, you have them here in Bayelsa State. Agriculture is the main occupation of the people here. One cannot but feel sad that such people, with their inclination to Agriculture, have been so apathetic about taking advantage of the presence of such an institution as ours to pursue Agricultural programmes,” he said.
The centre director said that his centre had space large and fertile enough for practical Agriculture, “but regrettably, the number of students offering Agric is very negligible. In fact, I can only boast of one Agric student in this centre.”
Amini, however, promised to make the need for the people of Bayelsa State to enroll into Agriculture and Agric-related programmes a major point of emphasis in the advocacy campaign of his centre henceforth.
Commenting on the ongoing 2022_1 Pen-on-Paper (PoP) examinations, the centre director said that the examinations were going on smoothly and orderly in his centre.
This reporter witnessed a session of the examinations at that centre. It was quite orderly. The director was obviously on top of his job, students were very well behaved and every staff appeared to know what to do without being prompted.
Writer: Joel Nkanta
