School of Agric and Natural Resources reviews curriculum

Cameroon’s economy is mainly agriculture-driven and thus there is the need for institutions to design a curriculum that meet the needs of society.

This notion is what inspired the review of the curriculum for agriculture by the School of Agriculture and Natural Resources (SANR) of CUIB.

Hildegard Keck, MISEREOR Advisor for Rural Development has counseled the School to consider farmers as well as others involved in the agricultural sector as stakeholders when setting up academic curriculum in a meeting to exchange information on this initiative that seeks to bridge the gap between stakeholders and the students.

In this light, she mentioned that community participation in identifying agricultural problems and the development of indicators to monitor and evaluate the progress of work, was of essence to the SANR and the Center for Agriculture and Rural Development towards the achievement of their objectives.

To elaborate the 4 year curriculum of SANR, Dr. Kima Laetitia, Acting Dean of SANR talked on Agri-preunuership, community engagement, the induction of the EoC philosophy, and the focus on faculty and students at the center of learning.

This she said, was complemented with an active learning system which encourages student working base groups, industrial placements as well as an inclusiveness programme which enlightens prospective students on agriculture.

Adding on community engagements in terms of agriculture, Salome Itoe faculty of SANR and of the Center for Agriculture and Rural Development enlightened all on the focus of the Center which is to work with post-primary school farmers in terms of capacity building, empowerment to bridge the gap between the farmers and the agricultural extension workers.

Hildegard Keck, MISEREOR Advisor for Rural Development was in CUIB with representatives of Caritas Cameroon, a relief and development body of the Catholic Church in Cameroon.

It is worth highlighting that MISEREOR is the German Catholic Bishops’ Organisation for Development Cooperation committed to fighting poverty in Africa, Asia and Latin America regardless of religion, ethnicity or gender.

The organisation works with church-based institutions, NGOs among others.