The perception of Egerton university agricultural education graduates on the relevance of their pre-service training to their job performance: A case study of Nakuru district, Kenya

Abstract

Egerton University is one the institutions that train Agriculture teachers in Kenya, through the tfsgramme of Agriculture Education and Extension. Such an exercise is, therefore, necessary to ezchers for teaching agriculture in secondary schools. The purpose of this study was to Lerermine the relevance of the B.Sc. Agricultural Education and Extension Pre-service Training Fagramme to Job Performance of the graduates from Egerton University. An ex post facto esearch design was used. A sample size of l lO agriculture education graduates was to be used in ‘e study, which was selected using multistage cluster sampling procedures from four divisions riong 15 administrative divisions of Nakuru District. These graduate teachers were to be Eected from 55 secondary schools distributed in four administrative divisions. However, only F Ieachers were found to meet the Agriculture Teacher characteristic, out of which only l l were . ed The researcher used questionnaires and observation schedules, as the key data collection ifs The questionnaire was pre-tested in ll schools found in Mombasa, Kilifi and Kwale 1 siflcts of Coast Province. The questionnaire was self- administered. Observations were made :_.".ng the first or second visit to the schools. The collected data and information was analyzed _: ".5 descriptive statistics. Findings of the study indicated a lack of balance between agriculture J ; biology in the training programme, which was said to be inclined more towards agriculture " ;: biology. Some courses were deemed irrelevant towards teaching of agriculture and biology ' secondary schools. Areas of importance such as PHV/AIDS were found wanting in the " gtzrnme. Thus, it was recommended that the whole curriculum of the training programme be : ed in line with the findings. \'1 —.