Farming Skills Development for Snail Production Business Among Agricultural Education Students in Federal College of Education (Tech.), Omoku – Rivers State

This study investigated farming skills development for snail production business among agricultural education students in Federal College of Education (Tech.), Omoku – Rivers State. To achieve this, two specific purpose, two research questions and two hypotheses were formulated. The descriptive research design was adopted for the study. The population consisted of 12 final year Nigeria Certificate in Education agricultural education students made up five males and seven females from F.C.E. (T.), Omoku during the 2021/2022 academic session. The study was anchored on experiential learning theory and the 3 stages model was utilized. Self-assessment checklist developed by the researcher was used to collect data from the participant at the end of the study. The reliability was ascertained using test-retest method. The correlation between the two administrations was computed using Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient (PPMC) and gave r value of 0.74. Data generated from the checklist were analysed using mean and standard deviation to answer research questions. Independent t-test was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. All computations were done with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 23.0. The findings revealed that both male and female agricultural education students opined that the practical snail farming skills development programme met their expectation because it addresses their needs for snail farming skills development. The finding also revealed that there is no significant difference in the rating of both gender. The finding also revealed that male and female agricultural education students in Federal College of Education (Tech.), Omoku opined that they excellent developed snail farming skills as results of exposure to practical snail farming exercises. The finding also revealed that there is no significant difference in the snail farming skills both gender developed due to participation in the practical snail farming programme. It was recommended among others that agricultural education farm instructors should design practical snail farming programme to ensure the students are engaged with learning activities relating to planning, pen construction exercises, snail feeding tasks, sterilization exercises in the farm, incubation tasks in the farm, hatching and harvesting exercises.