Zimbabwe Inaugurates its first Online Agricultural College…being Advancing in the Digitization of Competence-Based Education

NEW AFRICA BUSINESS NEWS (NABN) Freetown, Sierra Leone– The Zimbabwe Online Agricultural College (ZOAC) inaugurated by Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development Permanent Secretary Dr. John Basera in Harare past Wednesday, is attached on pillars that encompass training, research, innovation, and entrepreneurship, to attain sustainable agriculture and human capital development.

Dr. Basera told the institution is for beneficiaries of the land reform programme and strives to give admission to agriculture-related education and teaching utilizing internet-based technologies.

“This is a noble program which is indeed a 9th agricultural college in the program but mainly targeting the beneficiaries of the land reform A1 and A2. Along the way, we need to close information and knowledge gaps hence the launch of this programming targeting farm owners which we are targeting to reform those owners to real agro-farm business owners. We believe that it will go a long way in terms of closings the gaps that are there and also consolidating the gaze of the land reforms,” he asserted.

Dr. Jotamu Dondofema – Director of Agricultural Education at the college disclosed they have been in alliance with the University of Zimbabwe to produce students trained with practical knowledge.

“We are working together with UZ mainly in partnership with the training program for them to assure quality as we train students so we get guidelines in terms of the qualifications framework and we standardize programs to deliver at regional and international level so the University of Zimbabwe is coming in to add quality,” Dondofema remarked.

This…evaluated the agriculture education curricula to close potential rifts insulating all facets comprising farm management and farming as a business.

The growth is from Agricultural Education 2.0 whose outputs were trainers and extensions to Agricultural Education Development 5.0 which concentrates on training, research, innovation, and entrepreneurship.

For New Africa Business News (NABN) Abdul Rahman Bangura Reports,  Africa Correspondent