Approaches for Enhancing Graduates of Agricultural Education Work Skills Towards Social and Economic Transformation in Nigeria

Abstract

Agricultural revolution is a fundamental pre-condition for economic and social transformation of a nation. The new agricultural education curricular emphasized on the acquisition of productive work skills by students for paid and self-employment to enable them live effective and meaningful lives and be able to contribute towards the development of society in which they find themselves. For graduates of agricultural education to be functional and saleable in the society, they need improvement and their skills must be relevant. It is in this regard that this paper has considered some approaches for enhancing graduates of agricultural education work skills towards social and economic transformation of Nigeria. The paper identified lack of adequate land as a factor of production, poor funding of agricultural education programmes, inadequate equipment and training infrastructure, irrelevant and outdated curriculum as factors hindering acquisition of work skills by students of agricultural education. It was recommended that teachers need to change their focus on teaching to learner centred approach and that extra-curricular programmes in agricultural education should be revived as this will ensure that every learner has the opportunity to gain work skills at any point of their studies.

Keywords: Enhancing, graduates, agricultural education, work skills, transformation.