GFA Area - SKILLS DEVELOPMENT IN AGRICULTURE

Challenges

The agricultural sector in most GFA partner countries needs to produce more and better food in order to safeguard food security of a growing population. While large proportions of the population in developing countries earn their livelihood in agriculture related activities, productivity and income generation in this sector remain low. One of the core problems is the lack of knowledge about modern production and management techniques at the farm and the small and medium enterprise (SME) level. Therefore, the education sector in many countries needs innovative and flexible approaches to tackle these shortcomings.

GFA concept and services

© goodluz | stock.adobe.com GFA applies a collaborative approach in agricultural development and technical and vocational education and training (TVET) to cater for the specific needs of the largely non-formalized agricultural sector.

Our interventions cover a wide range from short training courses to long-term design and reform processes of formalized TVET systems. We aim at integrating any form of agricultural training and education into the educational system of a country by applying selected tools from a comprehensive set of services such as:

Conceptual support for policies and sector frameworks
Professional human capacity development of advisors, teachers, trainers and educational managers
Design of target-oriented delivery modes, e.g. classroom, mobile, e-learning etc.
Inducement of modern learning approaches
Establishment and review of national qualification frameworks and recognition of prior learning mechanisms
Development and review of skills and occupational standards, curricula and training programs

More than anything, we favor a competency-based approach in learning and training (CBT) that integrates practical training in enterprises or on farms.

Family farms and SMEs are major actors and target groups in the rural sector. Most of them need knowledge and skills in innovative farming techniques. At the same time, they require management and organization skills so they can the raise productivity of their farming systems and develop their businesses. As a result, appropriate training and education shall lead to better performing value chains at a system level. GFA supports the design of curricula for the required complex occupational profiles that cover both technical as well as business topics. We emphasize target group specific modes of delivery, language use and didactical methods as to optimize learning success and adoption rates.