Despite its importance, agriculture has many misconceptions that make its practice unattractive and uninteresting to the youth. For agriculture to be modernized and serve its purpose, initiatives must include the youth. Senior high schools must be encouraged to participate in school agriculture.
Against this background, the Awudome Senior High School (AWUSO) at Tsito in the Volta Region of Ghana, in collaboration with the Old Students Union of AWUSCO (OSUA), has initiated a sustainable agriculture and environmental development program to promote students’ love of agriculture and care for creation. A 14-member committee, the Cultivating Excellence Committee, was formed to oversee the planning, implementation, and evaluation of the school’s self-sustaining agricultural policy.
The policy envisions AWUSCO as the best school in Ghana, practicing sustainable agriculture in an eco-friendly environment. The overall goal is to inculcate a culture of environmental sustainability through hands-on learning among students, teachers, and the community.
For the vision and goals to be achieved, there is a need to leverage the school’s records and successes. The school introduced agriculture as a subject in the 1970s. Since then, AWUSCO has farms where students participate in practical agricultural activities such as crop production and poultry. The school participates in the annual Cosmos Energy School Agriculture Competition in vegetables. The school is also earmarked for support for poultry and vegetable production.
These achievements notwithstanding, the school faces some challenges, including reduced soil fertility, plowing hindrance due to the rocky nature of the land, poor layout and landscaping of the school compound, and inadequate trees and ornamentals on the compound and avenues. The committee has planned to implement a set of strategies.
The overarching strategy is an inter-house competition. Details include assigning houses to specific projects, monitoring husbandry practices, and evaluating the houses’ performances against agreed-upon criteria. This will encourage inter-disciplinary learning and teamwork, innovative thinking and problem-solving, environmental awareness, school pride, and healthy inter-house rivalry.
Members of the Cultivating Excellence Committee, drawn from school management and OSUA, are responsible for planning and executing the operational plan for 2025. They are to provide expertise in specific areas. Under the chairmanship of Mr. Festus Kwadzokpo of the 1974-year group, the committee is poised to deliver the 2025 Plan of Action and an annual award ceremony.