Relationship between Curriculum Coverage and Technology Adoption in Farming by Form Four Graduates: A Case of Nyandarua West Sub County

Agriculture contributes the highest in the countrys economy. Despite agriculture being taught in secondary schools, many secondary school graduates seem not to participate in farming activities in Nyandarua West Sub-County. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relation between curriculum coverage and technology adoption in farming by form four graduates in Nyandarua West Sub County. Despite the agricultural technologies that have been generated through research in Africa, the impact of such technologies is yet to be felt in most households owing to inefficiency in communicating and sharing agricultural knowledge. The situation in Africa is aggravated by slow adoption of modern information and communication technologies and the shortage of information and communication management professionals. The target population was farmers in Nyandarua West Sub-County who sat for Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (K. C. S. E) in the period between year 2000 and 2007. Ex-post-facto research design was used in this study. Snowball sampling procedure was used to establish a sample size of 100 respondents collected from five administrative divisions. A Questionnaire and observation schedules were used in data collection. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to analyze data using descriptive statistics (means and percentages) and inferential statistics (t-test and chi-square) to test the hypothesis at 0.05 significance level. The study results indicates that agricultural knowledge had a positive relationship with use of technology in farming. The study concludes secondary school agriculture knowledge positively contributes to adoption of technologies and diversification. The researcher recommends that schools and educators should enhance their efforts aimed at encouraging the students taking secondary school agriculture subject to interact with superior modern technologies in agriculture since it promotes increased production.