VOCATIONAL AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION TRANSFORMATION: STRATEGIES, CHALLENGES AND PROSPECTS FOR NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

There is hardly any argument against the role of Technical and Vocational Education and Training in general and Vocational Agriculture in particular in national development. This paper therefore focuses on the strategies for empowering youth for national development through vocational agricultural education programmes and challenges that may hinder vocational agricultural education programmes for youth empowerment in Nigeria. Consequently, mandatory entrepreneurial agricultural training of University students offering general courses (GST), training of vocational agricultural education teachers and adoption of research and technologies are some of the strategies that would enhance youth empowerment for national development while wrong policy implementation, school- community relationship and imbalance between theory and practice are some of the challenges that hinder vocational agricultural education programmes for youth empowerment in agriculture in Nigeria. A well formulated policy or programme is useless unless it is properly implemented. Over the years, we have been emphasizing the issue of economic diversification with main focus on agriculture. The national policy on education places premium on Technical and Vocational Education and Training as one of the ways of achieving national development. The paper has also highlighted some prospects for improvement using the Universal Basic Education which places emphasis on vocational subjects including agriculture and developing skill oriented workforce in the society. It is recommended that government should seriously monitor and supervise the implementation of the provisions of the National policy on Education regarding Vocational Agricultural Education in order to enhance youth empowerment through vocational agriculture to foster economic growth and national development. It is also recommended that more qualified vocational agricultural education teachers be recruited to teach vocational agricultural education courses to facilitate the transformation of Vocational Agricultural Education programmes to self-reliance sub- sector in the Nigerian economy.