Dele Ogunyemi
7 November 2009
Ibadan — The National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) has commended Oyo state Government for placing top priority on agricultural research and training as manifested in the establishment of the College of Agriculture, Igbo-Ora.
Specifically, the board expressed delight over the on-going massive investment in physical and infrastructural development of the Agric college.
The NBTE Verification Visitation team to the College, led by Mr. Aloysius Mpiere, during an on-the-spot assessment of facilities yesterday said a lot of physical transformations were now noticeable in the institution as against what was on ground during the last visitation in April this year.
The board's visitation was aimed at ensuring that the work of teaching and research at the College are worthwhile and that the students are having access to qualitative facilities that will make them practically oriented.
Mr. Mpiere said with the noticeable upgrading of facilities and infrastructure such as lecture rooms, theatres, laboratories, workshops, studios and service units, since the last NBTE verification, more courses would hopefully scale the accreditation hurdle this time around.
It would be recalled that only Home and Rural Economics curriculum was approved by the NBTE for the college during the April's visitation.
In his remarks on the occasion, the chairman of the College Governing Council, Dr. Saka Balogun, who doubles as the Chief of Staff to the Governor of Oyo State, told the visiting NBTE team that the state government accorded priority to food security and self employment hence the establishment of the College of Agriculture, which is expected to make its graduates employers of labour and not job seekers.
To this end, he said, the government is committed to making the two-year-old College of Agriculture the best of its kind in the sub region.
Earlier in a welcome address, the Provost of the College, Professor Gabriel Olaoye Farinu reeled out the developments already recorded in the institution saying that modern teaching and research facilities had already been procured for the Animal Health and production technology, fisheries technology, agricultural technology as well as agricultural engineering technology, among others.
According to the provost, the facilities include laboratory equipment, furniture, chemicals, farm tools and all such others that would make effective teaching possible.
While noting that about 120 students participated in the institution's programmes last session, Professor Farinu said twice the figure are expected to be offered admission into the various programmes in the next admission exercise.
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