Syndicate calls for reducing number of agricultural engineering graduates

AMMAN — The Jordan Agricultural Engineers Association (JAEA) on Tuesday urged universities and higher education authorities to regulate the number of graduates of agricultural programmes and focus on the quality rather than quantity.

In a phone interview with The Jordan Times, JAEA President Mahmoud Abu Ghneimah said the local market accommodates up to 250 agricultural engineers per year, while the number of graduates exceeds 1,000 annually.

“It is every student’s right to work in the field of their study and feel their value in the labour market,” Abu Ghneimah said, adding that local universities have six agricultural faculties which is “more than enough to cover Jordan’s needs”.

He underscored the need to introduce new programmes that focus on modern agricultural technologies to replace some of the “old-fashioned programmes” that some agriculture faculties still offer.

Abu Ghneimah also suggested updating the academic plans of agricultural programmes offered at universities.

“Around 70 per cent of the courses offered by agricultural faculties are elective,” he said. 

Academic plans should focus further on obligatory courses, which introduce students to the core topics of the field, Abu Ghneimah noted.

The association leader said the JAEA, which has some 20,000 members, trains graduates and hones their skills to facilitate their entry into the labour market, noting that most graduates are hired by private institutions as jobs in the public sector are “very limited”.

Abu Ghneimah stressed the importance of the profession, arguing that “future colonisation is going to be in the fields of agriculture and water”.