ADDIS ABABA, July 4 (Xinhua) -- The Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture has hailed the contribution of Chinese experts to the production of international standard textbooks for agricultural technical and vocational education and training (ATVET) in the East African country.
The Ministry on Thursday held an event that celebrated the writing wrap-up of the textbooks on different areas, including poultry production, animal health, crop production, bee keeping, water and soil conservation, and dairy production as well as forestry, fishery, coffee and tea production, beef cattle, and crop protection.
Speaking on the occasion that marked the wrap-up of the textbooks to which China provided technical and financial support, Ethiopia's State Minister of Agriculture Sani Redi noted that the agricultural TVET College textbooks writing is a milestone event in Ethiopian history.
The state minister commended China for its continued support to the transformation of the agriculture sector in particular, and the success of agricultural TVET program in the country in particular.
Sani said that the Chinese have made contribution by re-editing and re-establishing those books written by Ethiopians, which had lacked international experiences and lessons.
"When the Chinese instructors came to Ethiopia for ATVET teaching and learning process, they identified the gaps of those textbooks; they submitted proposal to re-edit and re-establish those books. They started with 16 books editing, six of them under process, two of the books were already finalized and printed; by now they are ready for teaching and learning process," he has stated.
The state minister told Xinhua that such quality textbooks contribute to skillful and scientific based agriculture, and thereby the textbooks have significant contribution to bring about agricultural transformation in the country.
"Two contributions from the Chinese side, the first one is bringing our texts internationally standard; Chinese have a good lesson in agricultural transformation; they bring their lesson, again they review international lessons, including our text books, this is the first great contribution; the second one is editing," he said.
"Comparing to the writing knowledge and technology in books, imputing this wisdom into students' mind, and applying them in real world are much harder and more important," The state minister underlined.
Speaking on her part, Liu Yu, Economic and Commercial Counselor at the Chinese Embassy in Ethiopia, said the governments of China and Ethiopia have attached great importance to their cooperation in agriculture, whereby they have achieved fruitful results.
Today's event is a good example in China-Ethiopia agricultural vocational education programs, said Liu. " The agriculture educational personnel exchanges between China and Ethiopia dated back to 2000."
According to the counselor, the past 19 years have witnessed 465 Chinese teachers coming to Ethiopia, providing guidance and training to around 6,500 Ethiopian teachers and technicians, as well as 55,000 students, introducing over 230 advanced agricultural technologies.
The Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture awarded certificates to the Chinese experts for their great contribution and successful implementation of the agricultural TVET program in the country.
Zhang Maoqing, a senior agronomist, is one of the Chinese experts, who have been providing agricultural training at one of ATVET colleges in Ethiopia, Alage Agricultural TVET College.
She told Xinhua that she has been in Ethiopia for the last 13 years, contributing to the agricultural TVET program in the country. She was among those experts who made contribution to the textbooks.
She said the textbooks have been prepared by bringing experiences of China and Ethiopia together and also with discussions between the experts of the two countries, for which the Chinese experts made contribution by providing references, revising and editing.
Chinese instructors have been working with Ethiopians in different AVET colleges in Ethiopia, sharing Chinese experiences, knowledge and technologies in the agriculture sector.
In his remarks on the occasion, Li Ronggang, Coordinator of the Chinese ATVET Program in Ethiopia, said that the Chinese and Ethiopian scholars should work more closely to localize Chinese technology in Ethiopia, and fit them with Ethiopian context.
