Sustained utilisation of skill set: assessing ex-agripreneurial trainees of agricultural school programme in Osun State, Nigeria

Abstract

Charitable organisations complement government efforts in training young Nigerians in sustainable agricultural practices. A potent means of assessing the effectiveness of this training outlet/effort is the assessment of the sustained utilisation of the skill set acquired by its ex-agripreneurial trainees. A multistage sampling procedure was used to capture sample subjects. The last five sets of ex-trainees were purposively and proportionately sampled, this gave a sample size of 97. Both quantitative and qualitative data were elicited from the sample subjects. The majority (74.2 %) of the ex-trainees were male, middle-aged (38 years), made a net average monthly income of ₦ 46,618, and had an appreciable length of experience (11 years) as agripreneurs. The results of this study were as follows: training on the skill set received by the ex-agripreneural trainees was effective (75.3 %). Inadequate finance (x̅= 3.0), economic instability (x̅= 2.40) and poor state of infrastructure (x̅ = 2.23) were prominent among constraints associated with sustained utilisation of the skill set acquired. Enthusiasm about my enterprise (x̅= 1.72) was the attribute of an agripreneur possessed most. Sustained utilisation of skill set was high (61.9 %). A significant relationship was established between household size (r = 0,456), net average monthly income (r = 0.537), years of experience as an agripreneur (r = 0.509), perceived effectiveness of training received (r = 0.380), attributes of an entrepreneur possessed (r = 0.380), and sustained utilisation of skill set acquired. The study recommends that the training modules/templates are sustained and adapted by other training outlets/efforts owing to their effectiveness and the sustainability potentials it confers.