Students of the Institute of Public Administration and Management (IPAM) recently joined their colleagues from other tertiary institutions in the country to work on the president’s farm at Ndemban village in Foni in the West Coast Region.
The activity was organised under the auspices of the National Training Authority (NTA), in collaboration with the National Association of Vocational Schools and Training Institutes (NAVSTI).
Speaking on the activity earlier, the acting director of the NTA, Edrisa Colley, pointed out that the back to the land call is a national one that everybody should be willing to answer. “I believe that whatever produce and its proceeds, gathered from the president’s farm here, is ploughed back to us the citizenry in one way or the other, e.g. in feeding, building and providing facilities in hospitals, schools, sponsoring education, especially girls’ education, and even awarding scholarships to deserving students in tertiary institutions.,” he stressed.
For his part, the chairman of NAVSTI, Ismaila Ceesay, was full of joy and appreciation for the students’ heeding the call. “On behalf of the Association, I say a big thank you to each and everyone here and especially to the institutions for making sure that we received an appreciable number of representatives from each institution,” Mr Ceesay said.
Commenting on the exercise, Mr Adebayo, PRO of NAVSTI, described the weekend’s activity as a sign of improvement on the general attitude of people to the clarion call for self-reliance and food self-sufficiency.
“All these are coming back to us in several other ways and if this continues and improves, hunger will be history,” he said.
He finally expressed his appreciation for the quick response, hoping that they, together with others, would heed the call again when requested.
