The Tertiary Education Trust Fund, TETfund in partnership with the Agricultural Research and Innovation Fellowship for Africa (ARIFA) has sponsored not fewer than 120 Nigerian scholars to Brazil with a view to understudying their agricultural revolution policy and its impact in national economy.
The Executive Secretary of TETFund, Arc Sonny Echono, speaking at a symposium held at the Federal University Viçosa, Brazil, disclosed that the sponsored Nigerian scholars that are currently running their master’s and PhD programs in Brazil will help to increase agricultural productivity and enhance resilience to risks in Nigeria and Africa at large.
ARIFA was established to build strategic competence, re-engineer the African agri-food sector and revitalization of pedagogy through the infusion of a new crop of professionals of fit-for-purpose workforce for rapid agricultural transformation.
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Echono explained that Nigeria and Brazil shares a lot of similarities such as climate, ecology and crops, adding that Brazil has done well in making itself self-sufficient in all areas and that the beneficiary should take home lessons to change the narrative in Nigeria.
‘’Until we make our educational institutions relevant to our national development objectives in our country, we won’t optimize the objectives for tertiary education, that is why we are strengthening collaboration’’ Echono said
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“Here we see what they do, they prepare graduates for the marketplace, so we should bear that in mind on how we prepare future graduates to take advantage of the opportunities out there in the workplace and Nigeria has a lot of these factors, giving our young population in Nigeria, our students are usually very intelligent, hardworking.
Also speaking was the Ambassador of Nigeria to Brazil, Professor Mohammad Ahmad Makarfi, who noted that the Symposium was timely and in line with the federal government’s effort at ensuring food security and curtailing importation.
