Escuela Nacional Central de Agricultura (ENCA) - Guatemala

Project to strengthen agricultural training kicks off in Guatemala

In September 2018, the kick-off meeting was held for the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) project in Guatemala to strengthen agricultural technical and vocational education and training (ATVET) at the Escuela Nacional Central de Agricultura (ENCA). Representatives from the 19 agricultural and forestry technical schools across Guatemala, participated in the meeting, hosted at ENCA.  

The event was an opportunity to share project goals and elicit stakeholder input related to curricula revision focused on meeting agricultural, agro-industial and forestry sector needs.  Presentations and sessions were conducted with the project team, including Virginia Tech’s Dr. Henry Quesada, associate professor, Department of Sustainable Biomaterials, College of Natural Resources and Environment, and John Ignosh, advanced extension specialist, Department of Biological Systems Engineering and Virginia Cooperative Extension. 

The in-country project team is now conducting a series of focus groups to gain insights into the specific needs of the private sector across the diverse regions and production systems of Guatemala.  This will inform updates and revisions to the curricula, and also serve to create a new agro-industrial program. The goal is to better address the gaps between private sector needs and the current skillset of graduates. 

In February 2019, the project team, in collaboration with EARTH University in Costa Rica, met to develop strategies for teachers to use experiential learning to deliver and facilitate student understanding of the new technical information. The $1.2 million, 2-year project is led by GOPA Consultants, a private consulting company based in Germany that works with MCC-Guatemala on improving education and training.