Agriculture and horticulture institute holds open day |29 August 2015

Parents and students have been able to learn more about the courses on offer at the Seychelles Institute of Agriculture and Horticulture (SIAH) -- formerly known as the Seychelles Agricultural and Horticultural Training Centre (SAHTC).

They did so yesterday during the institute’s annual open day.

A group of former students were also presented with their certificates for completing several modules at the institute.

This took place in the presence of the Minister for Fisheries and Agriculture Wallace Cosgrow, principal secretary for post-secondary education, planning, human resources and infrastructure, SIAH governing board members, parents, students and other distinguished guests.

The main objective of the open day is to provide the parents of the students the opportunity to meet the lecturers and discuss their child’s performance and general conduct, but this year the centre was also open to the general public especially the youth. Secondary students had the opportunity to visit the institute and familarise themselves with the centre’s training programmes being offered.

The centre’s new name is only four days old as it came into effect on August 25, when the Minister for Education signed the centre’s charter and handed it over to the principal of the institute, Georgie Belmont.

Consequently along with the charter, the centre also received a new governing board which is made up of professionals from agricultural and horticultural related sectors.

In his opening address Mr Belmont pointed out that the main challenge they face is to attract more secondary students to follow a course at the institute and to retain them once they have joined.
 
“We will make it our mandate and our business to aggressively market our programmes and one of the activities that the centre is planning to organise is a youth forum on agriculture and horticulture in partnership with all the stakeholders to present the youth of Seychelles with the opportunities that exist in the two sectors,” he said.

He noted that the institute is working in close collaboration with the Ministry of Fisheries and Agriculture on its programmes to revive the agricultural sector especially with the implementation of its farmers’ capacity building programmes.

The SIAH is also exploring the possibility of offering other full-time programmes to the farmers and those who are interested, which will provide them the opportunity to follow a module of their choice at cost.

The institute signed an agreement with the International Fund for Agriculture Development (Ifad) Competitive Local Innovations for Small Scale Agriculture (Clissa) projects team to facilitate a number of programmes for more than 500 farmers this year. Those who had completed the pesticide handling and application course and the post harvest management and value added services were presented with their certificate.

The project coordinator Ifad/Clissa, George Bibi, launched the farmers capacity building programmes that the centre is already conducting.

The staff and students of the school had mounted several exhibits and live demonstrations for those present to see. On sale were value added agro products made by those attending the Clissa training programme.

Accompanying the article are some photos taken by our photographer Patrick Joubert during the open day yesterday.