DETERMINANTS OF YOUTHS’ INVOLVEMENT IN AGRICULTURAL VOCATIONAL TRAINING IN OYO STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

Development of youth through active participation in agricultural vocational training may bring about proliferation of agricultural enterprises for sustainability of agricultural sector. This study focused on the determinants of youths’ involvement in vocational training in Oyo State, Nigeria. A multistage sampling procedure was employed to select 120 respondents. Data were collected via structured questionnaire on respondents’ socioeconomic characteristics, reasons for the choice of specific agricultural enterprise training, attitudes towards the trainings, involvement and constraints to the vocational training. Data were analysed using descriptive and inferential (Chi-square, PPMC, and linear regression) statistics. Results show that most of the respondents were male (74.2%), married (70.0%) and entrepreneur (64.2%) with mean age and monthly income of 22years and ₦27,665 respectively. Respondents were mostly involved poultry (120.8) enterprise and personal interest (55.8%) was the main reason for their choice of the enterprise. They had unfavorable attitude (53.3%) and lack of fund (weighted mean=165.9) constrained their involvement. Significant relationship existed between respondents’ age (r=-0.31, p=0.00), institutions attended ((χ2=91.90, p=0.000), monthly income (r=-0.22, p=0.02) and involvement in the enterprise. Major determinants of their involvement in the enterprise were age (β=-0.30; p=0.01) and constraints faced (β=0.20; p=0.03). Since they identified fund-related constraints, subsequent agricultural vocational training programmes should be packaged with credit facilities (with little or no interest rate) to be disbursed immediately after the training programme.