Abstract:
To assure a sound and successful agricultural industry for the future we must provide the necessary education, in addition to production agriculture, in the present. The purpose of this study has been to isolate the needs of schools desiring other than production emphasis in their agricultural programs and to make a general proposal to meet these needs.
Related literature and resource materials reviewed in connection with this study revealed a need for evaluating certain practices within present programs and a desire for agricultural offerings In addition to the traditional vocational agricultural courses.
Procedures in this study included a survey by opinionnaire of public secondary school principals or curriculum directors, guidance personnel, and agricultural instructors.
After the opinionnaires were returned, nine of the respondents were interviewed for more specific information pertaining to the broad areas included in the opinionnaire, A questionnaire was sent to agricultural departments to obtain information concerning changes in their present agricultural programs to better meet the needs.
Eleven of the thirty eight schools surveyed had agricultural programs at the time of the survey, but the findings of the study point out a need for agricultural education in all of the secondary schools surveyed. The desired offerings in each school varied, but any agricultural course offering should be elective and not mandatory to the students of the school. Most of the respondents indicated a need for more than just one agricultural course in their school to serve the needs of the students. The non-farm agricultural occupations were an area of concern to most of the respondents.
A suggested course in Horticulture is included in the study based upon several of the disclosed considerations. The proposed course is for one semester and the inductive inquiry approach based on principles is suggested, The interviews revealed some other areas of interest to school personnel as a possible agricultural offering. The conclusions of the study are: the procedures used
in carrying out this study are valuable for the purpose of identifying: limited guide lines by which the secondary schools' agricultural education program might be up-dated; the group of non-agriculture teaching school personnel involved in this study were not sufficiently knowledgeable of agricultural programs. This limited the validity of their opinions and recommendations concerning future programs: and the information obtained through the various procedures used in this study does not have sufficient factual knowledge to enable the drawing of sound conclusions as to what is necessary for meeting the needs of urbanized school districts in a agricultural education.
