Frederick Kiwanuka
The state minister for higher education, Chrysestom Muyingo, has urged students to consider joining Bukalasa Agricultural College in Luweero district after upgrading the institution.
Muyingo, who visited the institution recently, also urged its administrators to market the college which has been refurbished under a project funded through a World Bank loan to attract more students.
“We are satisfied with the upgrade. Market the college to the public so many Ugandans can benefit from the skills you are offering,” he said during the inspection tour of refurbished infrastructure.
He also appealed to the communities surrounding the college to send the students to the institution for specialised training in agriculture. Since 2018, the Government has been upgrading the college into “a centre of excellence” under a $100m Uganda skills development project to offer competency-based training.
A new competence-based curriculum has been developed and lecturers retooled to deliver it (curriculum) under the project. In addition, the college has been stocked with new equipment to facilitate teaching and some of its old buildings have been replaced with new ones and others refurbished. For instance, the college now has a new library and administration block.
Dr Jane Egau, the commissioner for teacher instruction who inspected the college together with the minister, said the institution’s new curriculum represents “a paradigm shift” in agricultural training – which will produce “tangible results”
The college principal, Gilvan Kisolo, said that said he hopes the college’s new facilities will attract more students to the institution which currently has 1,800 learners.
He added that new short courses would be introduced to complement the existing two-year diploma and certificate programmes. The new curriculum is designed not only to enable the institution to produce employable graduates but also professionals who can help farmers develop agro-processing projects and address post-harvest challenges. It is also designed to create linkages between training and agricultural industry demands.
Inspecting the college in 2019, the First Lady and education minister, Mrs Janet Museveni said she expected the training offered to people in the surrounding communities to spur agricultural production.
She noted that a critical mass of skilled graduates in communities surrounding the college can facilitate the transformation of agriculture and families.
As a centre of excellence in agricultural training, Mrs Museveni said the college has the potential to pass on, for instance, value-addition skills to the nearby communities to facilitate economic growth. The practical training offered by the college, the minister noted, will attract more students, enabling it to collect substantial amounts of money in tuition to run smoothly.
