RAMBLE, Hanover — IF principal of the 75-year-old Knockalva Agricultural School, Josh Nelson, has his way, the Hanover-based educational facility would be rebranded as part of an initiative aimed at increasing subject offerings, thus placing the school “on a path of growth and development”.

“What it (rebranding) would do is to allow us to formally add environmental science to the curriculum, but also the rebranding would make us a little more attractive to potential students, as we are also looking to add botany, zoology, and to upgrade the delivery to the point where, at third-year, our students are doing first-year courses at the college level,” Nelson explained.

A proposal, he added, has already been sent to the Ministry of Education for the school to be renamed the Knockalva Academy for Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

The school board has also given the green light for the institution to seek a $20-million investment, which would eventually take the school off the Government’s annual $30-million subvention.

Nelson, who attended the school in the early 1980s, said the investment would allow for the school to produce agricultural crops on a large scale. The produce, he added, would be consumed by students, as well as sold locally.

Knockalva Agricultural School, which sits on some 218 acres with a great house used as an administrative block, is located in the rural farming community of Ramble, and caters to students between the ages of 15 and 19 years old.

The school originally had 234 acres, however, 16 acres was cut off in 1983 to establish the Knockalva Technical High School.

And despite the school retaining its core purpose over the years, the institution has been through three name changes – from Rural Secondary Vocational School to Knockalva Agriculture Training Centre, to its current name Knockalva Agriculture School which was done in 1982.

During the school’s recent 75th Anniversary exposition, Stan Pinnock, a potential investor and past student currently living in Canada, told the Jamaica Observer West that he was impressed with what he saw at the school.

“What I found out when I came here, I am impressed. I see the vision and I am pleased with what I heard, what I see, and the people who I know and can work with,” said Pinnock, a beef cattle farmer in Toronto.

“I want to give back. I am a ‘giving-back’ person and I will give back to Knockalva, and I will work with anyone here who wants to work with me. I have the best vegetable seeds, plant seeds and everything to do with agriculture at my fingertips. So, I am willing to go into partnership with them here on the beef side, and as time goes by, wherever I can expand in.”

Pinnock, however, did not say how much he is willing to invest.

Meanwhile, president of the Knockalva alumni and board member, Canute Saddler, who assisted in preparing a business plan for the school, said a copy of the overall strategic development plan will be given to Pinnock for review, and for him to determine the amount of investment he is prepared to give.

During the anniversary function, state minister of Agriculture, Labour and Social Security, Luther Buchanan announced that through the Dairy Development Board, the dairy programmes in selected agricultural educational institutions are being upgraded and revamped. Schools benefiting from the initiative, he said, are: the College of Agriculture Science and Education, Ebony Park HEART Academy, Sydney Pagan Agriculture School, and Knockalva Agriculture School. Buchanan added that under the programme, the needs of the dairy units of Knockalva will be addressed.

The school, which has an enrolment of 117, currently rears pigs, chickens and cultivates a wide variety of fruits and vegetables.