PRT Holds Continuing Education Class for Agriculture Teachers in GHOWR

On May 06th Member of Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Chaghcharan, Ghowr province, US Department of Agriculture representative Paul Kanninen held the first continuing education class for the faculty of the Agricultural High School in Chaghcharan.

All teaching and administrative personnel of the school attended the lecture. This first lecture was an introduction to Soil Science.  It was well received and lasted 30 minutes longer than planned due to the number of questions asked.  The teachers asked for more of these classes and provided the USDA rep with a list of topics to cover. These included Forestry, Entomology of Wheat Pests, Wheat Diseases, Horticulture, Silva-culture and Animal Health. 

 

The teachers requested that the classes be held at least twice per month.

“All seven teachers and two administrators attended the lecture.  The teachers were very young.In fact, five of the seven teachers have only been teaching for two years since their graduation from 12th grade. Since teachers usually receive a lower wage, in Ghowr, than the neighboring provinces, all of the teachers are locals”- says P.Kanninen – “Teachers in Ghowr do not have access to any continuing education classes so this type of training is very important”.  Agriculture is one of the key sources for development and growth in Ghowr Province. 

Most of people in addition to permanent farming are engaged in raising animals. aising animal not only produce meat and dairy products but wool as well on which the handcraft of carpet. Constructed traditional water dams have been destroyed during long years of war in most of the areas and livestock has declined 50 percent. There are 220,148 acres of agricultural land and 14,553 of pastures in the Province. 

Due to poor management in irrigation not even 50 of the mentioned is farmed. Weak rural infrastructure has made private sector not to take part in marketing products and equipment. Lithuanian – led PRT in Chaghcharan started it‘s activities in 2005. Beside Lithuanians, officers and civilians from Denmark, Japan, Croatia, Georgia, Romania, Ukraine and USA are working together in this PRT.