No abstract

Agricultural education play a central role in disseminating knowledge, skills and attitudes toward managing environmental resources which support food productivity. Its goals are basically achieved through formal education. Hitherto, youths have been involved in environmental stress mitigation efforts both at the school and community levels but are still short of adequate knowledge. Current trends of environmental stress and its associative impact on the food growing soils and space call for its integration into agricultural education programme. This paper identifies mechanisms for ensuring Food Security (FS) and Sustainable Environment (SE) through Youths’ Agricultural Education. First, the paper discussed the concepts of sustainability as it affects the environment and food security. It also discussed constraints of FS and SE. Mechanisms discussed includes: curriculum content review and update, adequate funding by government, training and retraining of manpower, and involvement of youth clubs and organizations. Furthermore, use of mass media; extension services; school farm; and organizing workshops, seminars; and integration of population studies in the curriculum were also considered. Finally, it was suggested among others that government should review school curriculum and renew her commitment through designing and implementing policies and programmes aimed at ensuring FS and SE.Keywords: Agricultural Education, Mechanisms, National Food Security, Sustainable Environment, Youths.

The phenomenal low participation of youth in agricultural education programmes has featured in several forums both at national and international levels. This is because giving the right opportunity youth could make positive impact and create positive change in the economy of nations. This paper identified challenges and enhancement of youth participation in agricultural education for food security. Survey research design was adopted. The subjects for the study were selected using multi-stage sampling technique. Data were collected using questionnaire. The population for the study comprised of all students in tertiary institutions offering agricultural education programme in the study area. Two hundred and forty tertiary students were chosen through proportionate simple random sampling technique from six randomly selected tertiary institutions in the North Central Nigeria. Mean and standard deviation were used to analyze the data. Findings revealed youths studying agricultural education are aware of their roles through their participation in schools; which extends to their communities, thereby influencing sustainable food supply and availability. The study also revealed that the identified challenges prevail on the youth participating in agricultural education. Analysis of identified approaches had mean scores above the benchmark hence; they were regarded as useful in enhancing youth participation in agricultural education. It was concluded that youth studying agriculture were well aware of their role. Their participation is however, hampered by the enormous challenges bedeviling the programme, which has negative implication on interest by intended youths. The findings were further verified through a focus group discussion involving ten lecturers of agricultural education. It was concluded that youth's participation in agricultural education is hampered by several challenges. The study recommended among others that, Agriculture teachers in collaboration with school management should emphasize establishment and maintenance of school farms by the students for practical skills acquisition by the youths in school; government should enhance funding, provide scholarship for students to sustain interest and enhance greater youth choice and participation in the programme.

This study was carried out to determine the entrepreneurial skill training needs of Business Education graduates of colleges of education for self-employment in Nasarawa State. Survey research design was adopted. Two research questions and two hypotheses guided the study. The population for the study was 112 respondents made up of 49 graduates and 63 entrepreneurs. The instrument for data collection was questionnaire. Three experts did face validation of the questionnaire. Cronbach Alpha method was adopted to determine the internal consistency of the instrument which yielded reliability coefficients of 0.87 and 0.89 for expressed importance and level of performance mean and training need index (TNI) were used to answer the research questions, while t-test statistic was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. Findings revealed no significant difference between mean responses of entrepreneurs and graduates in all the entrepreneurial skill training needs except in five out of ten items on managerial skills training needs. It was concluded among others, that Business Education graduates need creativity and managerial skills training. It was recommended among others that government should set up special grants for regular training and retraining of Business Education graduates to prepare them for self–employment opportunities.