Impact of Agricultural Skills Acquisition on Entrepreneurial Intentions of Students in Colleges of Education in North east, Nigeria

Abstract

The study investigates the influence of agricultural skills acquisition on the entrepreneurial intentions of students in Colleges of Education in North-East Nigeria. Descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. The population of the study comprised of 500 NCE 111 agricultural education student from Colleges of Education that offer NCE agricultural education course in north east Nigeria. A sample size of 350 students were selected using multi-stage sampling technique, appropriate statistical formula was used to determine the sample size. Data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics to answer the research questions, and inferential statistics to test the hypotheses at a 0.05 level of significance. Spearman rank moment correlation was used for the relationship between agricultural skills acquisition and entrepreneurial intentions of agricultural education students in Colleges of Education in North-East Nigeria. The findings revealed that, agricultural education students do not possess adequate skills for entrepreneurship development in agriculture, they had a very low skills in the use of agricultural tools, agro processing, farm management and a moderate skill level on crop production techniques and animal husbandry practices. The findings further indicate a moderate level of entrepreneurial interventions among agricultural education students in federal collages of education in north east Nigeria. The study recommends the integration of entrepreneurship education in to the curricula of agricultural education programs across all colleges and ensuring full implementation of the curriculum will no doubt assist agricultural education students to connect the skills acquired with viable agribusiness opportunities.