Influence of Youth Participation in Decision Making on Implementation of Agricultural Extension Programmes

Abstract

There is low youth participation in decision making on implementation of agricultural extension programmes leading to failure in their acquisition of vocational skills for self-reliance. This study determined influence of out of school youth participation in decision-making on the implementation, to suggest measures to enhance their engagement for success. It was conducted in five typical Kenyan farming systems. Cross-sectional survey design, stratified, simple random and purposive sampling were used to select 160 adolescents who studied school agriculture but once out, had registered with youth groups engaged in it for self-reliance. Data was collected with questionnaires, analyzed by qualitative and inferential statistics at significance level 0.05. In the results, youth rated the 5 strategies proposed to enhance their participation in a five-point likert scale, as being important to extremely important. The linear regression correlation analysis confirms significant positive correlation between level of participation in decision making and level of implementation of agricultural extension programmes. Spearman’s correlation coefficient showed that level of implementation increases with rise in participation in decision making. Therefore, the strategies are prelude to success in attaining youth involvement in the implementation of the programmes, that may lead to their acquisition of vocational skills for self-reliance.