Long Abstract:

Agriculture is an essential part of African livelihoods and remains relevant in securing these livelihoods. The EU-Task Force Rural Africa stresses the importance of agricultural education in untapping the potential of rural areas and secondary cities. Agricultural education can play an important role to provide particularly young people in Africa a means to enter the job market provided that agricultural education includes linkages with practice. This panel therefore explores the vertical column of agricultural education and in what way impactful connections can be forged between universities – higher education – TVET practice. This panel will also examine to what extent the employment market i.e. the need of the agri-food sector is taken into consideration in (higher and TVET) education and uncover strategies to enhance and strengthen agricultural entrepreneurial/skills training in Africa. This will be discussed on the basis of institutional experiences of relationships between private sector actors and education institutes in Europe (particularly the Netherlands, e.g. triple helix experience and Dutch Diamond approach) and those in various countries in Africa and illustrated with (practical) cases.

[initiated by F&BKP/NFP, with input from NUFFIC, Wageningen University and Research, RUFORUM]