Xingwana at the launch of the College of Agriculture and Environmental
Sciences, Unisa
30 August 2006
Mr Chairperson
Principal and Vice Chancellor of the University of South Africa Prof. Barney
Pityana
Executive Dean of the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, Dr
Maggi Linington
Ladies and gentlemen
It is a great pleasure to be here tonight and it is definitely always a
pleasure to be afforded a chance to address a gathering of some of the best
minds and brains in the country. It is not everyday that one is invited to
address oneâs childrenâs teachers. Mostly the situation is reversed. That is
one of the reasons why I grabbed this opportunity with both hands.
The second and the most important reason I accepted this invitation was that
I felt that maybe it has been long overdue that the University of South Africa
(Unisa) should have a College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences. I am
probably not the only one who has been wondering why the largest university in
Africa and one of the six biggest universities in the world was not offering
any training in agriculture. For an institution that has 30% of all students in
South Africa maybe this was a travesty.
This launch could not have come at a better time as it comes after the
Department of Agriculture and its partners, including the Department of
Education had launched its Agricultural Education and Training (AET) Strategy
for Agriculture and Rural Development in the second half of 2005. Furthermore,
the importance of Unisa's membership of the Joint Initiative on Priority Skills
Acquisition (JIPSA) cannot be overemphasised.
The AET was launched as an admission of the flaws in the previous system
with its focus mainly on formal higher education programmes aimed at commercial
farming. We agreed that the system had to be restructured and reoriented to
also address the needs of subsistence farming, small-scale and emerging
farmers.
Quality control in formal education and training varies and this leads to
variations in its efficacy in providing a reliable quality product. The AET
Strategy is one of the mechanisms aimed at addressing these disparities in
education provision and access to opportunities. The strategy will help in the
growth of employment and equity by 2014.
Ladies and gentlemen, to give impetus to the implementation of the strategy
we are in the process of establishing the National Agricultural Education and
Training Forum. A number of stakeholder organisations have been invited to
serve on this forum. These are organisations such as Agri South Africa,
National Agricultural Research Forum, and Association of Principals of
Agricultural Colleges, Agricultural Sector Education and Training Authority
(AgriSETA), National Research Forum, National African Farmers Union (NAFU)
South Africa, Higher Education of South Africa, whose chairperson is Prof
Pityana and others. The names of those who will form the executive committee of
the forum will be announced on 24 October.
The forum will, among other programmes, lead a programme of action for:
* developing and maintaining an effective and well co-ordinated AET that is
integrated at all levels and responds appropriately to South African
agriculture
* enhancing equitable access and meaningful participation in AET curricula with
urgent challenges facing South African agriculture, including sustainable
development and land care, food security, water harvesting and rural wealth
creation.
Some of the questions we have been asking ourselves are whether we are
producing enough professionals or not. If we are not, why is it that there are
still agricultural graduates and post graduates for that matter, who are
roaming the streets without employment? Are our institutions offering
agricultural training just churning out unemployable products? How is academic
training linked to practical or hands-on training? Are these graduates in the
fields of study that the Sector needs most? These are questions that
institutions such as UNISA and us as partners need to answer and come up with
solutions.
If these questions are not adequately addressed, the goal of reducing
unemployment to below 15% and halving the poverty rate to less than one-sixth
of households as set out in Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South
Africa (AsgiSA) will not be achieved. If this goal is to be achieved, sustained
and strategic economic leadership from Government and effective partnerships
between Government and stakeholders such as UNISA, labour and business will
have to be maintained. In this way, targets of accelerated and shared growth
will be realised.
Finally, we have not been producing enough agricultural researchers
(especially from the previously disadvantaged groups) in this country. I agree
that the crop of researchers that is out there at the moment is world class but
a few questions in this regard are appropriate:
* Fact: most of these knowledgeable and experienced researchers are on their
way to retirement.
* Question: What are we doing to tap into this important and irreplaceable
tacit knowledge to equip our young researchers?
* Fact: Research is regarded as tedious and at the most boring
* Question: What needs to be done or is being done to encourage our young
students to go into this field?
Ladies and gentlemen: I can go on and on asking more and more questions but
I simply wanted to highlight the fact that training alone will not do the trick
if we are to sustain this sector. Training needs to be complemented by other
interventions as well. It will not help us if our training institutions' main
aim is to compete for a record number of students rather than producing
world-class agricultural researchers, engineers, information technologists and
so forth.
To the Vice Chancellor and Principal of Unisa and the Dean of the College of
Agriculture and Environmental Sciences I say, let us work together for the sake
of this important sector in our country. Especially as it is an integral part
of poverty alleviation, increasing employment, food security assurance and
social stability.
I thank you.
Issued by: Department of Agriculture
30 August 2006
Source: Department of Agriculture (http://www.nda.agric.za)
