Seventeen East Berbice-Corentyne Secondary Schools will be competing in a School Gardening Competition, which was officially launched at the St. Francis Community Developers Headquarters last Friday.
The competition, which is being hosted under the theme “Beauty and Productivity-REUSE, RECYCLE AND REPLANT,” is the result of a partnership between St. Francis Community Developers and the Department of Education Region Six. A Department of Public Information (DPI) report said while focusing on a wide range of topics that are part of the CSEC and CAPE syllabuses, the competition also aims to create an atmosphere that is healthy, exciting and conducive for learning; expose students to a practical stimulating external laboratory where they can interact with nature and learn at the same time; and make science more fun for teachers and students, where the garden becomes the test site for studies in morphology and physiology in crop production.
Yonette Crandon, Subject Committee Coordinator for Agriculture Science, explained that the competition will begin in January 2020 and entails two phases of judging. Students are expected to plant any two cash crops, any two fruit crops and two CSEC ornamental plants. She encouraged the students participating to incorporate conventional or non-conventional farming techniques, creativity and aesthetics to make the competition more fun and less labour intensive, the report said.
Meanwhile, Minister within the Ministry of Agriculture Valerie Adams-Yearwood delivered the feature address at the launch and noted benefits to be derived from school gardening, such as teamwork, honing of social skills, focus, self-confidence, acquisition of new skills, and knowledge of food cultivation. She posited that students involved in the activity would achieve higher grades because the learning is more relevant and hands-on. Also speaking at the launch was President of St. Francis Community Developers Alex Foster, who noted the school gardening competition “will fit in a larger project whereby they will create a comprehensive programme to ensure that we can have the best project to replicate across the other nine regions in the country….”
To assist the students, tools and tillers have been made available to the participating schools. Apart from St. Francis Community Developers and the Department of Education Region Six, partners for the initiative include Food For the Poor Guyana Incorporated, ExxonMobil, and the National Agricultural Research and Extension Institute.
Food For the Poor Guyana Incorporated’s Project Manager Andrea Benjamin said the organisation is pleased to be a part of the exercise, given that it involves two critical sectors – education and agriculture – and promotes the development of the country. “Guyana is very fortunate we can practice agriculture on a large scale. Many of our Caribbean brothers and sisters don’t have the same capability. We have rich, fertile soils, so we must utilise these resources to become food secure. I see this competition helping to equip the next generation to ensure that Guyana is food secure… I believe this is an investment also in their future, the future of this region and the country,” she was quoted as saying.
