Evaluating Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE) Programmes in Colleges of Education in South-East Nigeria

Abstract

This study aims to fill the theoretical and empirical gap by evaluating the availability, implementation, and barriers of SAE programs in Colleges of Education in South-East Nigeria. The findings provide valuable insights for agricultural educators, policymakers, and administrators to enhance the effectiveness of SAE programs and improve agricultural education in the region. Researchers adopted a descriptive survey research design which employed the use of a content-validated 39-item checklist and rating scale for observations, and also a field-tested structured questionnaire to elicit data from respondents. The questionnaire was confirmed to be reliable at reliability coefficients of 0.89 and .92 respectively for two clusters of the instrument, using the Cronbach’s Alpha Coefficient Reliability method. Additionally, a cluster sampling technique was adopted by this study to select 70 lecturers and 350 students of Agricultural Education. Analysis of data collected was performed anonymously using descriptive statistics such as frequency, percentages and mean, while the variability of responses was determined using standard deviations. The observations made by researchers regarding the implementation of Supervised Agricultural Experiences (SAEs) in Colleges of Education in South-East Nigeria revealed a lack of emphasis on entrepreneurship, placement, improvement and agricultural service learning. Also, though, activities of research SAE were highly implemented, there was a lack of experiments in agricultural technology. Results show that lecturers employed methods such as practical demonstrations, group projects, field trips, excursions, lectures, and laboratory work were commonly used. However, integrating technology and guest speakers from the agricultural industry was not widely employed, indicating potential areas for improvement in instructional methods. Findings reveal barriers to the implementation of SAE to include, funding issues, poor access to facilities and equipment, lecturer incompetency, and poor college-industry linkages. Therefore, among others, this study recommends that agricultural educators and administrators should collaborate with other stakeholders to effectively implement SAEs in Colleges of
Education.