Education delivery methods and constraints influencing professional competencies of agricultural extension officers in Oyo and Ogun states, Nigeria

Abstract

The study focused on education delivery methods and constraints influencing the professional competencies of extension officers in Oyo and Ogun states Nigeria. Simple random sampling procedure was used in selecting 84 extension officers from the study areas of which 80 of them completed and returned their questionnaires for analysis. Data were analysed using descriptive (percentage, mean) and inferential (PPMC, Multiple regression) statistics. The mean age of respondents was 46 years and the majority (65.0%) of them were male. Also most of them were; married (95.0%), had household size of 5-6 persons (53.8%) and had 9-16 years of job experience (40%). All the respondents had attained tertiary education with 47.5% of them at HND level. The most effective education strategy was FNT/MTRM ( =1.91) while the least effective was job shadowing ( =0.73). During in-service training (45.7%) was the most preferred period to acquire extension competencies, organisational management ( =19.70) was the most possessed competency while lack of funds ( =1.77) was the most severe constraint to acquiring competency. Education strategies explained about 51.7% of variance in the extension worker’s level of competence with short-term course/seminars (1-2 weeks) conducted at zonal level as the major predictor. It was recommended that the ADPs should adopt short-term courses/workshop held at zonal level as a major training method and also improve on the methodology used during FNT/MTRM to enhance competency development.