The education and agriculture ministries in collaboration with the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture recently hosted the second secondary schools hydroponics contest.
According to a Government Information Agency (GINA) press release 30 secondary schools from the three counties participated in the exercise. The competition aimed at boosting students’ knowledge about agriculture, using improvised techniques because of environmental changes. The six-week contest which began on October 6 was the brainchild of the late Puerto Rican agronomist Dr Hector Munoz. GINA said the St Stanislaus College Association farm was recently renamed in his honour.
Minister within the Ministry of Education Dr Desrey Fox said that she is proud to thank the many people who support the Ministry of Education in building a bright nation. At an awards ceremony hosted at the Diamond Secondary School after the contest was judged, Fox said Guyana is poised to feed herself and the entire Caribbean and it leads the Region in food security due to the Jagdeo Initiative. However, the minister cautioned, “we cannot only depend on the Ministry of Agriculture, but the effort must be multi-sector to be able to formulate better programmes of this nature.”
Meanwhile, the minister commended teachers for upholding the challenge and rolling out the programme in the school curriculum. She said the competition will serve as eye-opener and will allow youthful minds to think further and formulate other mechanisms which will boost agricultural development in this country. “The exercise is not just a competition but a foundation that will guide the participants to choose a right career,” she said.
Deputy Chief Education Officer at the ministry Suresh Baijnauth said the hydroponics technique has expanded local agriculture as the country moves away from the traditional practices of forking and ploughing. It also paves the way for it to be added to the CXC syllabus, he said.
