Primary School Agriculture: Volume I: Pedagogy (GTZ, 1985, 144 p.): Part II: Teaching methods: 1. The scheme of work: 1.3 The physical strength of school children

Primary School Agriculture: Volume I: Pedagogy (GTZ, 1985, 144 p.)

Part II: Teaching methods

1. The scheme of work

		(introduction...)
		1.1 The growth cycle of crops as a means to devising the scheme of work
		1.2 The principle of integration
		1.3 The physical strength of school children

1.3 The physical strength of school children

Children must not be overworked during practical school farm work. Allowing for repeaters and for children who start school late, each class will have a few pupils who are considerably older then the majority. If one assumes that school farm work really starts in class 4, then the children doing farm work are between 9 and 13 years old. Many of them are still very small and cannot do hard work over a long time.

Class age of pupils	crops to be farmed
four 9-11 years	pineapple, maize on the flat, nursery work with coffee, cocoa, oil palm, eucalyptus, colocasia and xanthosoma
five 10-12 years	cassava, groundnuts, melons, pumpkins, maize, sweet potatoes
six 11-13 years	yams, crops on ridges or mounds, transplanting tree seedlings, contract work on cocoa and coffee farms

Therefore, the area of land per pupil must be small, and should not exceed 20 - 30 m². Crops that require heavy tilling (e.g. digging deep holes, serious ridging) and hard work while they are growing (e.g. staking) or at harvest time (digging tubers or groundnuts from heavy, wet soil) should be farmed in the upper two classes only. Nursery work, growing pine-apples and maize farming on the flat can be done with younger children since the work is relatively light. The table above summarizes these recommendations.