Abstract:
This study focused on the integration of cooperative education into senior secondary schools agricultural science curriculum for enhancing students’ skill acquisition in Ankpa Education Zone of kogi state. Five research questions were developed in consonance with what the study sought to find out. Two null hypotheses were also formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance. The study used descriptive survey research design. The target population for the study was 230 comprising of 215 teachers of agricultural science and 15 managers of Agro-allied industries. A random sampling technique was used to obtain a total of 120 agricultural science teachers for the study. A structured questionnaire of sixty one (61) items was used to elicit response from one hundred thirty five (135) respondents comprising of one hundred and twenty (120) agricultural science teachers and fifteen (15) managers of agro-allied industries within Ankpa Education zone. The instrument was face validated by three experts. The instrument was also tested for reliability with the correlation coefficient (r) of 0.83. The data were collected and analyzed using means and standard deviation to answer the research questions, and t-test statistics was used for testing the null hypotheses. The findings from the study indicated that 10 items were identified as needs for integrating co-operative education in the teaching of agriculture in secondary schools, 20 items were identified as entry-level skills need in Agriculture for skill acquisition, 12 agro-allied enterprises were identified, similarly, 9 challenges that teachers and students could face in integrating co-operative education were identified, finally, 10 solutions were proffered in the course of the challenges facing integrating co-operative education into agricultural science curriculum. The null hypotheses tested showed that there were no significant differences between the mean ratings of responses of agricultural science teachers and managers of agro-allied industries on the integration of cooperative education into senior secondary school agricultural science curriculum for enhancing students’ skill acquisition in Ankpa Education Zone of kogi state. It was recommended that government through the Ministry of Education should encourage partnership of schools and industries through frequent field trips, excursions to enhance skill acquisition, and that challenges facing teachers in integrating co-operative education programmes should be strictly adhered to by granting in-service training for teachers at regular periods of time to promote skill advancement.
