Government Information Service

by Emmanuel H. Joseph
Government Information Service

The Dominica State College has welcomed an opportunity to increase the knowledge of its agricultural and biology students. On Thursday Ronald Charles a Dominican residing in Canada made a presentation of agricultural books to the institution. The books were sourced from Canada. Mr. Charles said that he hoped that the books will be of tremendous assistance to the students in their quest for good literature on agriculture and related subjects.

“I am delighted to be able to offer these as they say; I facilitated it under the umbrella of DAAS. DAAS really has to get the credit for that. As an organisation, I think it probably doesn’t get much credit as it deserves because many of our members are out there in the world so they do not always have a local face. However, it is worth repeating that behind the scenes there are a number of people who are doing much greater work than I could possibly aspire to on behalf of DAAS.

Therefore, I hope that these resources will find the niche in your library or in your reference section and that the agricultural students will be able to benefit from there and go on to bigger and better things.”

Botanist and president of the Dominica Academy of Arts and Sciences, Dr. Clayton Shillingford, said that the presentation forms part of DAAS’ ongoing efforts to assist Dominicans at home and that it comes at a timely moment when we need to focus on training our students to get into the field of agriculture.

“As you know, our agriculture is in some difficulty and at some appropriate point, we have to be able to train our students at the Dominica State College to get into that field of work either in research or in production or in some other service to agriculture. We are not going to be able to do that well and to build our agriculture base here until and unless we have, if you like, a resource that can feed into the various areas of agriculture: extension, research, production, this whole area of how you deal with agriculture as a business. Therefore, these books that Ronald has brought in from Canada, I think, will be an addition to your sources of information and knowledge."

President of the Dominica State College, Hubert Charles, accepted the books on behalf of the students of the Dominica State College. In saying thanks, Mr. Charles expressed his delight at the fact Dominican nationals overseas continue to contribute meaningfully to Dominica’s development.

“I am pleased that this gift or these gifts represent a continuation of that energy and a continuation of that commitment on the part of Dominicans living overseas to assist with institutional development, to assist with national development generally.”

In the meanwhile, the Dominica Academy of Arts and Sciences, in addition, presented a consignment of sporting equipment to the Dominica State College on Thursday November 6th, 2008.