Agarfa College Of Agricultural Education And Training Background

Agarfa Agricultural Technical, Education and Training College (ATET) is one of the five Federal Agricultural Colleges administered under Ministry of Agriculture, and it aims to produce skilled workforces that are highly skilled in the agricultural sector at the intermediate level, based on the country’s agricultural development policy and strategy.

Today’s Agarfa ATVET College was first established in 1982 as Agarfa Multipurpose Farmers’ Training Center on 4, 254 ha of land in Oromia regional state in Bale Zone of Agarfa district 458 kms from Addis Ababa.

Agarfa ATET College is located on suitable land for agriculture on an altitude of 2350 to 2365 meters above sea level with average annual rainfall of 750 – 1000mm and average temperature of 6-250C. The name Agarfa Multipurpose Farmers’ Training Center used until 1991, offering six months training to 16,322 farmers.  The center was renamed following the fall of Derg in 1992 changing its name to Universal Development Agent Training Center, it officially launched its training to train mid-level professionals which trained 8,916 medium-skilled agricultural professionals in nine-year period from 1992-2001.

In addition to the short-term training sessions, 5,228 agriculture oriented trainees have been trained in various fields of training, ranging from one month to three months, apart from regular training during training terms.

The institute grew into a college in 2001, and named Agarfa Agricultural Technical and Vocational Education and Training College (ATVET) in 2001 as a three-year diploma training program and trained 11,019 (19.63% among five colleges and 12.3% among country level) highly competent middle level Agricultural Development Agents from 2003 to 2018/19. In 2019/2020 academic year, 1,318 students were pursuing their training in Animal Science, Plant Science, Natural Resources Management and Small Scale Irrigation Development fields of training. 467 trainees have graduated colorfully in February 2021.

The College releases students for certification by an accredited body when all departments qualify them at Level IV for three years on Ethiopian Occupational Standards (EOS)-based Vocational Standards approved by the Ministry of Education. 

Currently, the college is aiming to launch more fields of trainings; Agricultural Mechanization and Land Administration in regular program for the coming new academic year.

The college also plans to open weekends, summer in service and night programs using the existing and new curricula. By the coming new academic year it is expected that 4-5000 trainees will be enrolled as the new building construction undergoing on students’ dormitory, classrooms and modern meeting hall with necessary auditorium is scheduled to be finished within months ahead.

There is a bright future for the college as the government gave due attention to scale up the training in improved training facilities and widen the field of training including gender and nutrition sensitive agriculture.

Number of active employees in the College working as trainer and supportive staff is

Trainer123
Supportive staff619
Total number of permanent employees at work742