Prospect and Challenges of Agricultural Education viz-a-viz Attainment of Millennium Development Goals by 2014

Abstract

Nigeria and African countries in general, is blessed with so many resources; human, mineral, land and other natural resources. Despite all these poverty, hunger, ill-health (diseases) high mortality rates, discontinuity in educational pursuit and the like, with all the attendant consequences. These are the experience of many African countries today. Nevertheless government at different times have adopted means and programmes, which are either targeted towards overall national development or as a response to immediate or prevailing problems in agriculture, at solving them, most of which have not yielded much result either as a result of ill-motivation or poor implementation. It is in view of this that this paper now proposed effective agricultural education as an avenue towards attainment of Millennium development goals. It exposed various opportunities there in such as potential to become a teacher, be self employed and employer of labour (in crop production, horticulture, ruminant and non ruminant production, poultry and fish production distributor and marketer of agricultural produce) and the challenges towards acquisition of adequate knowledge and skills in agriculture and recommended that government should create a conducive environment for learning and agricultural educators to lay more emphasis on practical agriculture for effective skill acquisition, self-reliance and independence.

DOI: 10.5901/jesr.2014.v4n7p167