Why young Nigerians prefer other schools to agricultural institutions, by FECA Provost

Provost of the Federal College of Agriculture, Akure (FECA), Samson Adeola Odedina, has attributed the poor attitude of Nigerian youths to studying agriculture to the absence of extra-curricula activities in most agricultural institutions.

Odedina said most youths prefer to go to other tertiary institutions due to the array of social and other activities that captivate their attention and consolidate their talents.

“If you look at the situation in the country, you will notice that young people are running away from Agriculture institutes,” he said.

He lamented that most agricultural institutions fail to give attention to activities like football, volleyball and other games, which instill the spirit of sportsmanship and teamwork in the youths.

“They lose interest in studying agriculture because of some extra curricular activities like football and others that are not available. We have also not been able to attract students into core agriculture.

“Our students don’t want to go into agriculture. They want to do engineering. They want to read single honours, like biochemistry, physics and others. Our children prefer to read such courses other than crop production, animal science and animal production simply because they don’t want to hear the word agriculture,” he said.

Odenina spoke at the Grand Finale of the 2017 Provosts Games held at FECA to also mark the 60th anniversary of the college, insisting that there must be more concentration on recreational activities for students to make agriculture and its study attractive.

“We have been able to keep these intelligent students on campus happy to learn for the diversification and the future of agriculture in Nigeria and in Africa,” he added.