Teachers’ and Students’ Perception on Functionality and Frequency of Equipment Utilization for Practical Agriculture in Colleges of Education in North-East, Nigeria

The decline in academic performance, and lack of necessary skills and farming techniques among agricultural education graduates, may be attributed to the inability of the students to frequently utilized functional equipment in teaching and learning agriculture in schools, functionality and utilization of equipment for teaching practical agriculture has not been determined in the study area This study was carried out to determine the functionality and frequency of utilization of equipment for teaching practical Agriculture in federal colleges of education in the north east zone of Nigeria. The survey research design was adopted for the study, two research hypotheses were formulated to guide the study, the population of the study comprised of 1, 038 NCE I and NCE II agricultural education students and their teachers in three federal colleges of education in the north east zone of Nigeria. A sample size of 363 respondents (72 teachers and 291 students) was used for the study. The instrument used for data collection was a structured questionnaire which was designed by the researchers based on the list of equipment provided in the minimum standard curriculum, the instrument was subjected to face and content validity by three experts and the reliability of the instrument was established by trial testing, a reliability coefficient of 0.81 was obtained using Spearman Brown Step up (Prophecy) formula. Data collected were analyzed using the Z test. The finding of the study revealed that 52 % of the equipment for teaching practical agriculture were not utilized by teachers and also 35 % were not functional, the findings also reveal a significant difference between the mean rating of Agricultural education teachers and students on the functionality of the equipment for teaching practical Agriculture. Meanwhile, there is also a significant difference between the mean rating of Agricultural education teachers and students on the frequency of utilization of equipment for teaching practical Agriculture. The study recommended that colleges should start viable Agricultural projects which can generate funds that can be re-invested in the maintenance of the existing practical equipment for effective Agricultural practical