STUDENT-RELATED CONSTRAINTS TO EFFECTIVE DELIVERY AND COVERAGE OF AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE SYLLABUS IN ENUGU STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

The study investigated student-related constraints to effective coverage and delivery of agricultural science syllabus of secondary schools in Enugu state. Two research questions and two hypotheses guided the study. The population for the study comprised of 126 agricultural science teachers and 120 senior secondary students made up of senior (SP) and deputy senior prefects (DSP) of each government secondary school in the zone. SPs and ASPs were utilized because their opinions would represent the opinions of the school and thereby eradicating the need for sampling. Hence, the entire population was used because of the manageable size. For effective investigation, a four point scaled 49 item structured questionnaire face validated by three experts from Department of Agricultural Education, University of Nigeria, Nsukka with a Cronbach Alpha reliability coefficient of 0.88 was used for data collection from the respondents. The mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions, while t-test was used to test the hypotheses at .05 level of significance. It was found out that there are 14 student-related constraints to effective coverage and delivery of agricultural science syllabus. In addition, the study identified 29 strategies for effective coverage and delivery of agricultural science syllabus by students. The study therefore recommends among others that the state government should establish agricultural science scholarship board in every education zone in the state to retain and motivate students’ interest in the subject and school authorities should ensure adequate provision of adequate teaching and learning materials for teachers and students to ensure that the agricultural science syllabus is effectively covered.