Supervisors’ and subordinates’ perception of the Impact of Botswana College of Agriculture training programme on Graduates’ Job behaviour.

Abstract

This study was a descriptive survey, which ascertained supervisors and subordinates perception of the impact of Botswana College of Agriculture training programme on graduates’ job behaviour. The study was carried out in the Ministry of Agriculture, Gaborone, Botswana, which is composed of six departments. All BCA graduates employed in each department, their supervisors and subordinates were the population of the study. A simple random sampling technique was used to select 34 graduates and the corresponding supervisors (27) and subordinates (19) were selected in order to reduce response errors due to bias and to triangulate the responses. A structured questionnaire was used for data collection and were analyzed with the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 16 using frequencies counts, percentages and one-way analysis of variance. The results show that there is male dominance among graduates, supervisors and subordinates. Majority of graduates (53%) are between 26-35 years while for the supervisors the range is 36-45 years however, subordinates are in the same range as graduates. At least 50 percent graduates indicated moderate competence in 27 out of 30 work based competencies. Supervisors indicated that at least 50 percent of the graduates have moderate competence in 21 out of the 30 listed activities while subordinates indicated that at least 50 percent of the graduates were rated to have moderate competence in 19 out of the 30 activities. In terms of meeting the expectations of supervisors and subordinates at least 70 percent of the graduates indicated that they meet expectations of their supervisors and subordinates in 12 out of the listed activities. Supervisors indicated that at least 70 percent of the graduates meet their expectations only in 8 out of the listed activities while subordinates rated that at least 70 percent of the graduates meet their expectations in 5 out of the 30 listed activities .One-way analysis of variance shows that a significance difference exists (F = 3.81, p the highest mean 98.29 while subordinates have the lowest mean of 86.94. It therefore implies that the rating of graduates by their supervisors and subordinates is lower than that of the graduates and the graduate ratings can also not be considered as valid because of the shortcomings associated with self rating. There is need to improve the training programme such that graduates can be rated independently as competent individuals.