Teachers, students get interested in growing rice

By PHILMA SENGI
AGRICULTURE students and teachers from Malahang Technical Secondary School (MTSS) were among visiting friends to the 2024 inaugural Trukai Smart Farmers graduation and rice field day in Erap on Friday.
MTSS agriculture teacher Lucy Lini said she and a colleague are two of more than 100 students who took up the farmer training programme at the University of Technology.
She said after their training they went back to the school and taught students what they had learnt about growing rice.
“Our school is a dual curriculum school,” Lini said.
“We have both academic agriculture and trade agrculture, most of the modules in agriculture are associated with growing crops such as irrigation and nursery, with different programmes under one package,.”
The purpose of their visit to the farm was to show students what they had been learning in classrooms and to witness the importance of agriculture and practical part of it at the farm.
Lini and her colleague, head of science department at the school, Bombos Tiwo Yae, were the only two teachers from their school to take up the training.
Both were given 1kg of rice seeds after the training but due to limited agriculture plots, Yae decided to plant the seeds on her own land while Lini and the students planted her share at the plots.
They recently harvested 40-kilogrammes of rice from the 1kg they had planted and decided to leave the whole harvest for seeds.
Lini said getting students involved in agriculture is a way forward because not every student will be offered to study in universities and colleges.
Those who are unfortunate will have a chance to farm and earn their own income.
She said that will minimise the rate of law and order issues in the country.
MTSS is hopeful that students taking up agricultural subjects are offered a places at PNG University of Technology and University of Natural Resources and Environment to broaden their knowledge in agriculture.
The two teachers graduated with Certificates of Smart Farmer Training and are looking forward to attending many more of such programmes.