Influence of Participation of School Youth in Decision Making During Showcasing Success Stories by Young Agripreneurs on Implementation of Agricultural Programmes

Abstract

School agriculture programme was introduced in secondary education curriculum in Kenya in 1965 and has academic objective to transfer scientific knowledge, and a vocational one to impart skills that would enable youth become self reliant. However, the vocational objective is scantly attained and school youth are inadequate in skills necessary for creation of livelihoods. It is expected that school youth would acquire more and specialized skills for independence through implementation of agricultural programmes such as in showcasing success stories by young agripreneurs. Participation in decision making on the showcasing events would act as motivation for youth to increase implementation of agricultural programmes. However, there is problem of low participation of school youth in decision making on implementation during showcasing success stories by young agripreneurs. This research was conducted to establish the influence of participation of school youth in decision-making during showcasing by young agripreneurs on implementation of agricultural programmes. The study was carried out in extra-county, county and sub-county category of secondary schools offering agriculture subject and, spread in five agro-ecological zones typical of Kenyan farm types, and found in Kisii and Nyamira counties region. Cross-sectional survey design was used. School youth are secondary school form fours taking the subject and implementing KCSE agriculture project. Stratified, purposive, and simple random sampling procedures were used to select a sample of 361 school youth. Data was collected using questionnaires, analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistics at probability level of 0.05 using SPSS version 21. Results show that school youth are well exposed to showcasing success stories by young agripreneurs for acquiring more and specialized implementation skills. It also confirms that gender of youth in school does not make a significant difference in the level of participation in decision making during showcasing events by young agripreneurs. School youth rated five of the six strategies evaluated as very important, and identified some amongst them as more significantly very important than the rest in increasing their participation during showcasing by young agripreneurs. There is a positive significant and linear correlation between level of participation in decision making during showcasing of success stories by young agripreneurs and level of implementation of agricultural programmes by school youth (R= 0.30, p = 0.00), p = 0.00). These findings will be useful in addressing issues of school youth participation in decision making during showcasing by young agripreneurs to motivate others implement agricultural programmes for self reliance.