Relationship between Availability Status of the School Farm Facilities and the Level of Acquisition of Agricultural Skills among Secondary School Students in Kenya

Abstract

One of the objectives of teaching Agriculture at the secondary school level is to equip learners with practical agricultural skills as this is considered one of the ultimate panacea to addressing unemployment and food insecurity. The school farm is considered a necessity in the teaching and learning of Agriculture for acquisition of practical skills. This study aimed at establishing the relationship between availability status of the school farm facilities and the acquisition of agricultural skills. Correlational research design was adopted. The study targeted 1532 secondary school teachers and 4327 form three students in Malava Sub-County. The accessible population comprised of the 171 teachers of Agriculture and 2532 form three Agriculture students. Based on Nassiuma formula, 15 schools were sampled. Using the Yamane formula, 150 form three students of Agriculture were sampled. One Agriculture teacher was selected from each of the sampled school. Questionnaires and an observation guide were used to gather data. A pilot study was carried out in Khwisero Sub-County to determine the instruments' reliability where Cronbach’s alpha of 0.89 and 0.72 were obtained for the agriculture teachers and students’ questionnaires respectively. Reliability of the observation guide was determined qualitatively by discussing the items with expert data analysts from Egerton University. Chi-square test of relationship was used to analyse the findings of this study aided by the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 26. The study established that availability status of school farm facilities does not significantly contribute to students’ level of acquisition of agricultural skills. Based on the findings, the study recommended that the government of Kenya through the Ministry of Education and school managements should not only improve on availability status of the school farm facilities but also find ways of improving on other factors such as level of access, adequacy and utilization of the school farm to ensure practical teaching of Agriculture for skill acquisition. Keywords: Agriculture Teaching, secondary school level