Abstract:
The central aim of agricultural education at secondary school level is to train students in basic principles of agriculture and develop their skills. Although most schools offering agriculture subject have the school farm, few teachers often use supervised practical lessons. The study sought to determine; the availability of school farm, the level of secondary school students’ access to the school farm, and the influence of class size and teachers’ practical experience on students’ access to the farm as a facility for teaching/learning practical aspect of agriculture subject in public, mixed day secondary schools in Masaba North Sub-County, Kenya. The study employed cross-sectional research design. The target population for the study comprised 6,489 agriculture students and 26 agriculture teachers (total=6,513) from 26 mixed public day secondary schools in Masaba North Sub-County. Through proportionate random sampling, 15 secondary schools were selected to represent the four educational zones in the Sub-County. The sample size for students constituted 200 respondents. In addition, one agriculture teacher was purposively selected from each of the 15 sampled schools. Data collection instrument for the study was a semi structured questionnaire. Fellow graduate student, the supervisors and research experts in the Department of Agricultural Education and Extension of Egerton University ascertained the validity of the instruments. Pilot testing on a sample of 30 respondents was carried out in mixed public secondary schools from Gucha Sub-county. Reliability of the instruments was tested using Cronbach’s Alpha Coefficient and a reliability coefficient of α=0.78 obtained. Data collected was processed, organized and analyzed with the aid of the Statistical Package for the Social Scientists (SPSS) version 20 computer programme. The hypotheses were tested at alpha 0.05 set apriori using the chisquare test of independence and homogeneity. The study established there was a significant statistical association (p=0.007) between class size and students’ access to the school farm. There was also a significant association (p=0.027) between teachers experience and students ‘use of school farm as a laboratory for practical learning of agriculture. Hence, education stakeholders need to assist the public mixed schools to purchase land that is adequate for purposes of teaching, instruction and practicals. This can be done through the county government which understands the needs of each school. Teachers should be properly trained so that they have more confidence in assisting students with practicals and demonstrations in the farm. Experienced teachers can be used to expose the newly recruited and less experienced teachers to proper farm demonstrations and training skills.
