Namibia, Benin, Ethiopia and Sira Leone, were singled out as the countries with the best Agriculatural Technical Vocational Education and Training, ATVET in Africa. The occassion was the historic progress review of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme, CAADP @ 10 in Durban, KwaZulu Natal, KZN, South Africa.
New Partnership for Africa's Development Programme, NEPAD's Agricultural Technical and Vocational Education Training ATVET, Advisor, Abraham Sarfo who shared the said countries best lessons through a powerpoint address to CAADP@10's Roundtable Community of Practice organized by the Forum For Agricultural Research in Africa, FARA at the Hilton Hotel said there was a lot to learn from the four countries.
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| Mr. Abraham Sarfo, NEPAD's ATVET ADvisor presenting the best lessons to the participants at the Hilton Hotel. |
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| Mr. Abraham Sarfo doing the presentation on ATVET |
According to the document which was shared with the participants at the roundtable and which Sarfo also highlighted, titled "Review of Agriculatural Technical Vocational Education and Training, ATVET in Africa 2013, best practices from Benin, Ethiopia, Namibia and Sierra Leone, the best practice often focuses on the ability of a method or practice to consistently show superior resuts. It says the best practice is a method or technique that has consistently shown results superior to those achieved with other means and that is used as a benchmark. Best practice should also be about using approaches thatt not only deliver superior results but also consider sustainability and ongoing development of the approach. This, according to the document must include, consideration of stakeholders - with a win-win outcome, deliver best results, minimize resources and maximize results.
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| Participants listening attentively to the presentation |
Referring to the Namibian case study as a best practice, the scientists, policy makers, and other experts Network were informed that although ATVET is only in an early stage of development, government is supportive of ATVET and has ambitions to develop a competence based ATVET system based on the comprehensive and flexible Namibian Qualifications Framwork, NQF, implemented by both the Namibian Training Authority, NTA and the Namibian Qualifications Authority, NQA. The best practices document also confirms that a key area of Namibia Development Plan 4 or NDP4 for 2012-2013-2016-2017 is to increase the percentage of candidates that meet the entry requirements for ATVET. Improving the availability of secondary education teaching and learning resources is a crucial factor. Key areas of skills shortages will be identified and targeted for development over the next five years with specific strategies that will also include the increase of provisions for opportunties for TVET. Opportunities and challenging in implementing ATVET programmes are very are very balanced the document stated. It says, GIZ/NPCA programme could start an inititiative that by supporting NPCA in stalling CAADP structures in-country to pave the way for future ATVET cooperation.
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| Some of the FARA leadership taht organized the CAAP@10 Roundtable Revieew |
The information shared with the FARA Community of Practice at the meeting in Durban which took place from 17-21st March 2014 -including the CAADP@10 review learnt that a formal CAAP Working Group was only established in June 2010 but Namibia has not yet met its obligations arising from the CAADP Compact. Although education is deemed to be the key to realizing the Vision 2030, Namibia's Education Sector received the highest single allocation of 23.6% of the total expenditure in the 2012/14 national budget. But ATVET is only in the early stage of development. However despite this situation, Namibia has in a way already made strides and forms part of the good practices in the area of vocational training, eventhough this particular field is yet to be fully developed.
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| A page highlighing some of the success factors in Namibia's ATVET Programme |
Overall, the best practices Namibia boasts include the inclusion of ATVETin Namibia's Development Plan 4, NDP4, which considers local food production critical to the country's efforts to become self-sufficient and food secure. ATVET is acknowledged as the single most important aspect of human resource development and a critical success factor for economic advancement and increased equality. The focus of agriculture in NDP4 include a large scale development of agri-business and agro-industrial sectors. These two sectors supported by a comprehensive training and education programme are seen as vital determining pathways to agricure-led economic transformation in Namibia. The other best lesson Namibia can share with the rest of the vocational training institutions in Africa include the establishing of vocational training centres. Namibia has five major centres providing non-formal farmer ATVET. The country has also mainstreamed youth in agricultural training at the Mashare Irrigation Training Centre in the Kavango Region, north east of Namibia which started operations in 2008 - and is reported to be providing intensive training in practical and theoretical aspects of irrigated farming. Namibia has also 17 irrigation centres and places great emphasis on the success of the Green Scheme which was born out of the drive to expand irrigation by by investing in irrgation infrastructure. Through irrigation development, the government aims to bring the private sector to remote and under developed areas, thereby building local capacity in terms of production, marketing management and general development.
The document also refers to the Farmers Support Project- initiated and supported by the implementing agent - Agricultural Banks of Namibia of which 54% is funded by the Federal Republic of Germany while th4 46% is from Agribank. It says the Emerging Commercial Farmers' Support Programme, ECF -SP 2007-2009 was the predecessors of the Farmers' Support Project, FSP, an EU-fundedthrough the 9th EDF and implemented by the Joint Presidency Committee south of the Veterinarian Cordon Fence.
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| One of the pages highlighting Namibia's successs story |
The FSP, implemented by GIZ, was initiated in 2010 and is in operation till 2014. It covers Namibia as a whole and besides newly emerging farmers, it also incorporates communal farmers. Major project activities include mentoring, rangeland management, exerusions, information days, topic related short courses, recording keeping and pre-and post settlemtn support courses. The document also refers to some challenges such as the fact that many farmers do not have sufficient knowledge in agriculture, no sufficient assets, reluctancy to participat ein record keeping and absence of landlords, access to farms, especially in rainy seasons is diffult and huge distance between farmers.
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| A page from the ATVET document on the four countries with best programmes |
It is the author of this post's believe that there are infact a number of programmes that could be addressing these challenges that might not all have been highlighted in the best lessons' package - such as the Millenium Challenge Account - in conjuction with government's efforts to improve farming in rural arears.. the radio programmes that MCA and Meat Corporation of Namibia are sponsorshing on the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation Airwaves dedicated to address the farmers' challenges which have call in opportunities which allow farmers to get their responses on any issue in real time. There are tailor made programmes which focuses on the auctions and auction dates - which are part of access to markets to farmers as Meatco visits various farmers to buy livestock from them - and indicate in advance a cost of particular animal will be - and farmers can also buy livestock at the same time.
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| Four countries highlighted for their best ATVET lessons |
This post has not highlighted the best lessons from Benin, Ethiopia and Sierra Leone, but these have also been articulated and followers of this blog can access this NEPAD printed document www.nepad.org. The author would also liketo acknowledge the authors of the document - AFC Consultants International GmbH who include Dr Friedrich Schulleri (Teamlader, Germany), Dr Theophile Djedjebi, Benin, Dr Ayele Abebe, Ethiopia and Michael Weder from Namibia as well as Victoria Williams from Sierra Leone as I made use of their information by sharing this with this blog followers.
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| Namibia among the best ATVET performers in Africxa |
I like to share information as information is power, that's why I made it a point to write this post as I had the opportunity to be part of the FARA Community of Practice and CAADP Network team that met in Durban this week.
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| This author of this post, Ms Menesia Muinjo who formed part of the CAADP@10 Review Network |
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