Obuasi, Feb 25, GNA - Teachers of agriculture in the Junior Secondary Schools (JSS) have been charged to help change students misconception that agriculture is a punishment subject in schools. Opening a two-day workshop for over 70 agriculture teachers drawn from schools in the Adansi West District at Obuasi on Wednesday, Mr Kofi Mensah, the Public Relations Officer at the district education office, said the way students are made to weed in school gardens as punishment has contributed to the youth shunning farming and other agricultural activities.

He therefore, urged the teachers to endeavour to change this trend to enable their students to see working on schools farms as learning a trade.

Mr Mensah said no matter how one sees agriculture, either as a theoretical or practical subject, the important thing is that, "we have to let our students appreciate the subject as a career." He emphasised the importance of agriculture in the overall development of the nation and stressed the need for the teachers to whip up their students interest in the subject. Mr Mensah further appealed to the teachers to take the workshop seriously so as to improve the teaching and learning of agriculture in their schools.

Mr Kwame Asirifi Adjei, the district agriculture co-ordinator for schools, asked the teachers to be practically oriented in their teaching to help the students to understand and appreciate the subject. He further encouraged them to adopt the skills of consultation to enable them to improve upon their delivery in the classroom. The workshop is aimed at assisting the teachers to effectively handle new topics introduced into the agriculture syllabus. The topics include lawns, factors of agriculture production, ornamental plants and agro-business.