Following the policies & pronouncements of Secretary of Agriculture William Dar/Manong Willie, I have been thinking positively about Philippine state colleges & universities, SCUs/SUCs.
Today, Tuesday, 21 Jan 2020, going through my many piles of books, I arrive at an insight, an extremely exciting educational extra-challenging role of the SCUs/SUCs:
interACTs
interACTs is acronym for Internet-Assisted Agriculture-Based Artistic Communication of Technologies, Tools & Transactions. The word Agriculture actually includes 3: Agronomy (field crops), Animal Husbandry (poultry & livestock), and Horticulture (garden crops). Technologies are the soft knowledge from sciences and actual experiences; tools are hardware; and transactions are credit and marketing.
In interACTs, the common goal for participants, groups or individuals, is sustainable entrepreneurship. Yes, ultimately, technologies, tools and transactions must interact to provide sustainability, characterized by technological feasibility, economic viability, environmental soundness, and social acceptance. That applies to any and all interACTs-supportedenterprises.
The above image is from the cover of the book titled Search For Sh@red Meanings authored by UPLB Professor Rhodelia L Gabriel of the College of Public Affairs & Development, CPAf, and edited by Frank A Hilario, 200 pages, published 2004. As the acronym CPAf intimates to me, community education refers to public affairs & development, meaning, you do not separate public affairs from citizen or village development. Note that I superimposed the word interACTs, to signify that community education must be ultimately for sustainability.
Community education is the call of the times, and digital is the way to go!
In my mind, projects under interACTs are community education programs and projects pushed by SCUs working with local government units, LGUs, in their areas. They can ask for direct financial assistance from the national government, from the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund, RCEF, c/o the DA, or directly from the DA itself.
LGUs & RCEF: go digital for PH Agriculture!
The SUCs, under the Commission on Higher Education, number 102[1]. They can work wonders with productive agriculture and creative communication.
All digital.
Any enterprise in Program interACTs must be entrepreneurial: technically feasible and economically viable. But it must also be developmental: environmentally sound and socially acceptable, nay desirable.
To start, for communicators in the SUCs, there is no need for printed materials – they can start blogging almost instantly. Age is no excuse, and this 79-year old can inspire and teach them as I visit their campuses.
Community education in what? First, youth entrepreneurship in agriculture, because youth are more receptive to new ideas. Adult or senior business-mindedness next.
Yes, in carrying out interACTs, I recommend that the local multi-purpose cooperatives be directly and solely involved. Virtual classes can then be sponsored by cooperatives of which the learners should be a member. This is putting radio courses for farmers to sleep, where there are nodemonstrations. Digital courses are ideal because everything can be demonstrated by sight, not simply explained to the ears. And a demo can be rerun again and again onscreen, yes.
Additionallly, this is putting the Farmer Field School, FFS, to pasture. Goodbye FFS, nice meeting you!@517
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