Analyses and Proposal of Education and Training in Agricultural Engineering in post conflict reconstruction era of Iraq.

Bc. Marcel Špaček

Master's thesis

Abstract:

Iraq has gone through many conflicts in past decades. History affected the country’s development badly. The education system was one of the most-developed systems in the Middle East prior to the 1990s. Illiteracy rate at the present amounts to more than 20 % among the population aged 15-24. Recent events had also an impact on the age composition of the population. Half of the population is younger than 19 years and one third of the population is unemployed. Absence of proper workforce development resulted in a huge decrease of agriculture production across the country. At the present, the country is still in its recovery phase. Each development starts with education and people. This thesis aims to analyse and propose a new agricultural engineering education curriculum according to the inhabitants’ needs. Two semi - structured questionnaires were created and send to Iraq to agricultural universities to collect data. One questionnaire was aimed at students to get data about their background, their attitude towards and perception of agriculture and environmental engineering. The second one was aimed at teachers and employees of the same universities, to get information about opportunities for graduates and the overall situation in the agricultural sector across the country. Where is the biggest lack of people? After processing the results, through literature review and relating to the ‘Resilience and Recovery plans’ for Iraq, syllabuses were produced. The assessment shows that despite the fact that Iraq has great potential for agriculture, because of land and enough labour force, the perception of students was heavily affected by the fact that Iraq is one of the biggest oil producers in the world. Willingness to work in agriculture was not rated very high and only 13 % of students have decided to work in agriculture after graduation. Another finding was that the country has an enormous deficiency in agriculture engineers and technicians. A further important discovery was the partakers’ opinion that agriculture education must be revised because at this time, it is not well suited for the existing conditions. Despite the limited number of respondents, the results can be used as an overview of the current situation in agriculture and environmental engineering. The conclusion can be of service to Iraqi authorities for further development of the agricultural education sector.

Keywords

Iraq, high education, agriculture, environment, engineering, analyses, proposal

Language used: English

Date on which the thesis was submitted / produced: 26. 4. 2019

Thesis defence

• Supervisor: doc. Ing. Vladimír Krepl, CSc.

Czech University of Life Sciences Prague

Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences

Master programme / field:
Tropical Agriculture / Sustainable Rural Development in the Tropics and Subtropics