Work Skills Required by Secondary School Leavers for Entry into Tomato Production Enterprise in Benue State

This paper identified work skills required by secondary leavers for entry into tomato production in Benue State, Nigeria. Three research questions were formulated to guide the study. Survey research design was employed for the study. The study was carried out in Benue State, Nigeria. The population of the study 300, made up of 200 registered tomato farmers and 100 Agricultural Extension Officers in Benue State were used for the study. Hence, the sample size of the study was 164, which consist of 100registered tomato farmers and 64 agricultural extension agents. A-32 work skills on tomato production questionnaire was the instrument used for data collection. The instrument was face validated by three experts and with a Cronbach alpha reliability coefficient was used to determine internal consistency of the instrument which yielded reliability coefficient of 0.89. One hundred and sixty-four copies of the questionnaire were administered to the respondent’s while one hundred and sixty copies were retrieved and analyzed using independent t-test to test the hypotheses. Findings from the study revealed that prospective farmers in Benue state required work skills in planning, nursery and pre-planting operations for entry into tomato production. It was recommended amongst others that tomato farmers in Benue State should be trained for skill acquisition centres in tomato production using the identified entrepreneurial skills in okra production and marketing. And it should be developed into training modules by Agricultural Extension Officers and administrators of skill acquisition centres for training interested individual especially the secondary school leavers.