Contribution Of Women Graduates Of Secondary School Agriculture Subject To Agricultural Productivity In Navakholo, Kakamega County, Kenya

ABSTRACT

Agriculture sector is underperforming in part because women, a crucial gender

contributing to farming have no sufficient knowledge and skills. To generate interest

in farming at an early age, teaching of agriculture was introduced to Kenyan secondary

school education system. This study, done in Navakholo sub-County, sought to

establish the proportion of women graduates of KCSE Agriculture subject involved in

farming and their contribution to agricultural productivity. The aim was to contribute

to strategies by policy makers to enhance agricultural productivity through female

education training at secondary school level. Correlational research design was used

against a population of 20,000 farm families to target 8,000 women farmers of farm

families. Multi-stage random sampling method was adopted to obtain a sample size of

422 women farmers. A household survey by use of a questionnaire, Focus Group

Discussions by use discussion guides and key informant interviews by use of a

checklist were used to collect primary data. Results from data analysis found that the

proportion of women graduates of KCSE agriculture subject practising agriculture was

low (25%). The KCSE women agriculture graduates’ reasons for choosing agriculture

subject varied from developing practical agriculture skills to high exam performance.

The study established that learning agriculture subject had a positive impact on farmer

productivity (P

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