Abstract
The study accessed agricultural undergraduate students’ reasons for choosing agriculture as a career, sources of their motivation, and problems encountered in their study. Data were collected through a structured questionnaire administered on 100 respondents selected through simple random sampling process from two Faculties of Agriculture of two universities: Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University (COOU) and Nnamdi Azikiwe University (NAU) both in the Anambra State of Nigeria. Some of the information provided by the respondents was verified through 4 in-depth interviews. Descriptive statistics such as percentage, frequency distributions, and Tables were used in analyzing the data. The result show that the majority of the students of COOU (48%) and NAU (44%) study agriculture through a constriction (admission offer outside their original career choice) and that the students’ parents were their major source of motivation (64%). The result further reveals that financial constraints (48%), unfavorable government policy (24%), and poor teaching aids were the major problems of agricultural undergraduate students in the State. The study concludes that sustainable involvement of youths in agricultural development is a felt need which requires diversified motivation attention. The study recommends proactive measures such as intermittent rewards and scholarship awards to agricultural students, early stimulation of student’s interest in agriculture, formulation of suitable agricultural policy and provision of adequate teaching facilities and aids to agricultural students by the Universities Management and their Visitors, Nongovernmental Organizations in agriculture and Philanthropists.
Highlights
There are many professional areas in life from which the youths can choose to learn for their livelihoods and they include Agriculture, teaching, Medicine, building, law, engineering, piloting, marketing, banking, and entertainment
3.1 Reasons Why Students Choose to Study Agriculture Table 1 shows that the major reason why students of Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University (COOU) choose to study agriculture was because they: were conscripted to study agriculture (48%), an interest in agriculture (32%) and because they aim to be self-employed in agriculture (20%)
Result from Nnamdi Azikiwe University (NAU), showed that 44% of the respondents took to study agriculture through admission constriction, 24% had an interest in agriculture, 16% applied to study agriculture because they saw it as a professional course and had the aim to be self-employed in the sector in the future while 16% were advised to study agriculture by their parents
Summary
There are many professional areas in life from which the youths can choose to learn for their livelihoods and they include Agriculture, teaching, Medicine, building, law, engineering, piloting, marketing, banking, and entertainment. On students’ low enrolment in agriculture, forestry and wildlife, Umeh et al (2020) opined that it is due to their lack of knowledge or mental picture of the job opportunities in agriculture careers. This suggests that the youths need to be adequately informed earlier enough on different agricultural areas to help them in their career choices. This is very important because the agriculture sector provides very large and unlimited opportunities for the youths in this time of increasing unemployment Umeh et al (2020)
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