Evening classes to cater for students engaged during the day.

The Fiji National University’s (FNU) College of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (CAFF) will offer selected programmes on flexible hours from Semester 1, 2018.

This is to enable potential students who are engaged during the day to attend evening classes.

This is the first time the College has introduced this study mode after receiving strong requests from employees intending to upgrade their qualifications but weren’t in a position to commit to fulltime studies.

The classes will be offered at FNU Nasinu campus from February 2.

Lecturer at Department of Agricultural Economics and Extension Education, Ritesh Chand said the College decided on this venue keeping in mind the travelling convenience of the intending students.

“In this competitive workforce, the need to upgrade qualifications has vastly increased. This will provide an excellent opportunity to those already in the workforce intending to further their studies,” said Mr Chand.

“We wanted to have the classes at a venue which is easily accessible to everyone. Looking at the heavy traffic flow in the afternoon we felt that it will be difficult for working students to attend evening classes at Koronivia.”

Mr Chand, who specialises in Agricultural Economics, said they were receiving a lot of enquiries from students interested in studying agriculture and becoming entrepreneurs.

“Study programmes offered at CAFF are designed in such a way that it trains a student to start up their own farm. Through Agricultural Economics we are trying to teach students how to manage finance in order to successfully run a business. Nowadays, farming is more about business which we call ‘farm businesses’ and gone are the days when it was only for traditional purposes.

“There are a lot of resources lying idle and they are not tapped to their full potential so in Agricultural Economics we are teaching how to fully utilise these resources. So this subject area is an important component of any programme at the College.”

Meanwhile, third year Bachelor of Science in Agriculture student, Krishneel Chand, plans to pursue a Masters in Agriculture through the University of Queensland after graduating from CAFF.

The 23-year-old from Rarawai, Fiji Sugar Corporation, Ba said he had learned many new and exciting things in the field of agriculture through his studies.

“I’m happy that I decided to join this College for my tertiary education. Agricultural Economics and Finance has been a very interesting component of my study here. I had never thought about how important the incorporation of economics and finance is in today’s farming practices,” he said.

Source: Fiji National University

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