The scientific method is a process for experimentation that is used to explore observations and

answer questions. Therefore this academic piece of writing will discuss the stages of scientific
method of learning or teaching, reasons for the decline in the numbers of schools offering
agricultural science and what can be done to revamp the teaching of agriculture science in most
schools especially in Luapiula.

Scientific method of teaching or learning has a series of steps and the following are the one:

To start with make an observation. This is the first step, at this stage one has to observe the world
around. Before hypothesis can be made or experiment can be done, one must notice and think
about some sort of phenomena occurring.

The second step or stage is to ask a question, identify a problem or state an objective: at this
stage one has to ask clearly, specific and interesting question which should take a central role in
teaching or learning. One has to ask an open-ended question with answers they are really
interested in discovering. One should practice checking whether the question will ultimately be
answerable. The reason it is good to state a question is because it is easier to design an
experiment to answer a question. A question is asked on the observations made and it also helps
in forming a hypothesis which focuses in one’s teaching or learning. Egbule(2004)

Do a background research is another step: this step helps one to research on the topic to learn or
teach more as one can about it. Rather than starting from scratch in putting together a plan for
answering a question, one can use a library and Internet research to find the best way to do things
and insure that mistakes from the past are not repeated.

Another step is making a hypothesis: a hypothesis is an educated guess about how things work or
what one is expecting. There are two forms of hypothesis that are particularly easy to test. One is
to test a hypothesis as an “if then” statement and the other one is called a”null hypothesis” or no
difference. It is an attempt to answer one’s question with an explanation that can be tested. A
good hypothesis allows one to then make a prediction: State both your hypothesis and the
resulting prediction one will be testing. Osuala(2004)

In addition designing and perform an experiment to test a hypothesis. Once one have a
hypothesis, one need to find a way to test it. One’s experiment tests whether the prediction is
accurate and thus one’s hypothesis is supported or not. It is important for one’s experiment to be
a fair test. Conduct a fair test by making sure that one change only one factor at a time while
keeping all other conditions the same. One should also repeat the experiments several times to
make sure that the first results weren't just an accident. There are many ways to set up an
experiment, a basic contains variables which are factors one can measure. The two main
variables are independent and dependent variables. Egbule(2004)

Record and analyze the data one obtain from the experiment. Once your experiment is complete,
collect measurements and analyze them to see if they support one’s hypothesis. If one finds that
his/her predictions were not accurate and that hypothesis was not supported, and in such cases
one will communicate the results of their experiment and then go back and construct a new
hypothesis and prediction based on the information they learned during their experiment. This
starts much of the process of the scientific method over again.

Even if they find that their hypothesis was supported, they may want to test it again in a new
way.

After that one has to make a conclusion: what good is knowing something if one keeps it to
him/herself. One should report the outcome of the experiment even if its just in a note book,
what did one learn from the experiment . ofodile(2006)

Lastly, communicate the results. To complete one’s learning or teaching, one will communicate
the results to others.

There is a record in the declining of number of schools offering agricultural science in luapula at
the nation at large. This is due to some reasons namely; lack of land, lack of teaching aid,
inadequate sources of water, unfavorable curriculum, few colleges to train teachers of
agricultural science, lack if interest in the subject by both teachers and learners and many more.
Let’s now look at them in detail:

Lack of land in some schools: Land is one of the major factors in agricultural production. In
some schools land are not enough for practical agriculture, this may result from the fact that
communities where the schools are located may not agree to give out some of the land near the
school environment out of greed. Ughamadu(1992)
This is also common to schools especially those located in urban areas. Pointed out that
vocational agriculture involves training to acquire skills, aptitude for proficiency in farming.
There is no way students of agriculture can acquire skill or proficiency in farming unless a
farmland is provided. As a result schools opt to stop offering agricultural science.

Lack of interest by both teachers and learners: most teachers and learners consider it as a dirty
course because it requires someone to put into practice what one is learning. Hence they prefer
those that doesn’t require practical, especially those who come from middle class families.

Many think that if they go for agriculture it means they are academically dull. They take it as a
course for dull people and for those teachers who comes from villages.

Lack of teaching aids: Agricultural science is a practical subject, therefore requires a lot of
equipment, inputs and infrastructure. It cannot be properly taught without adequate facilities and
equipment, such as storage facilities, tractors, machine tools, and modern laboratory, computers
and many more. All these facilities are lacking in many schools, hence those schools stop
offering agricultural science.

.Incompetent of some teachers: It is the teacher who eventually implements the curriculum
through the interaction with students who are the immediate beneficiaries of the system. They
are many incompetent graduate teachers or agricultural science in schools who lack interest in
farm activities but still qualified in agriculture because of their high grades in the theory aspect.
Ofodile(2006)

Lack of skill full agricultural science teachers in schools has resulted in the production of theory
oriented agricultural science graduates. The shortage of qualified teachers has resulted in the
poor teaching methods. Most teachers due to their incompetency lack focus on various teaching
methods and materials to be used to enhance learning. Due to this many schools stop offering
agricultural science.

Few colleges and universities to train teachers of agriculture science: teachers to offer
agricultural science are very few, in some schools they only have one or two. This is because
they colleges and universities to train them are very few. This is because it’s very difficult to
train a teacher of agricultural science. As a result decreasing in the number of schools offering
agricultural science.

Not having enough fund in some schools: many schools are starved of funds by the government
to enable them to erect and equip modern laboratories, procure adequate equipment, tools, repair
and replace faulty equipment, procure fertilizers, drugs, feed and many more. Also schools are
not adequately funded to establish school farms for practical.

In addition agricultural science also requires learners to be having educational field trips in order
to discover and see for themselves what they are learning thereby many schools consider it to be
expensive. Hence decide to stop offering.

Inadequate sources of water. Most schools in Luapula do not have adequate source of water, this
is because of geographical position of some schools, there are not located near the sources of
water. Learners will lack water for irrigation, keeping of fish and animals to drink. Therefore
those schools will not continue offering agricultural thereby reducing the number of schools to
offer this subject. Osuala(2004)

Unfavorable curriculum: the education curriculum does not cater much on agriculture instead
sought to improve science and technology and thereby introduces subjects like Information and
Communications Technology (ICT) at the expense of agricultural science. The fact remains that
without human effort (teachers) to develop agricultural sector the future of the country is
doomed.

This also applies to the syllabus, it is overloaded that it does not allow for the proper teaching of
the subject. The agricultural science covers the crop, animal, soil, economics, extension, the
teachers find it difficult to cover the broad, thereby find it difficult to be offering it.

Non-cooperative attitude of heads of schools: some heads of schools especially the art oriented
ones do not show any interest in practical agriculture in their schools. Whenever the teachers of
agricultural science approaches them for financial assistance, they feel reluctant and rather extort
the students’ money. And in some cases these heads share the school farmland among teachers
for farming. Egbule(2004)
Even though the number of schools offering agricultural science have decline so much, there is
some chances of revamping. This can be achieved through; acquire more lands, make favorable
curriculum, providing teaching aids, find alternative sources of water and more. Let’s now
discuss them in details.

Make agricultural science as a compulsory subject: agricultural science is also like any other
subjects there it has to be made a compulsory subject in order to revamp it in many schools in
Luapula and the nation at large. This will also help in instilling skills in learners which can even
help them in their daily life.

Another way to revamp is by having competent teachers: effective teaching of agriculture must
result in improved learning for students. It is a common defect in our educational set-up that
most of the subject (Agric) teachers are not competent in the subject concern. Ughamadu(1992)

The professional and qualified teachers should stimulate both the students and themselves to
enhance efficiencies in performance. Meanwhile, the subject teacher concern in one way or the
other must have qualities on farm experience, general technical education character and
personality.

Make favorable curriculum: The term curriculum has been conventionally and broadly defined to
all the experiences that the student is exposed to under the direction of a school. A has to be in
such way that it consist of series of courses including extra-curricular activities. The curriculum
has to be more efficient and more relevant to needs of the students/learners.

Teacher-training programme should include the content of curriculum development on new

approaches and method concerning the teacher/instructors ‘attitude. A system involving central
and local governmental departments should be established to evaluate the curriculum
implementation process which aimed at ensuring the quality of the programme offered.

Rouse interest in learners: this can be achieved by motivating the learners in many ways. One the
way to motivate them is by having a good number of educational field trips so as to expose them
to different places not knowing that they are learning.
Another way of motivating them is by giving them part of the crops or animals they are growing
and keeping respectively so that they may not be thinking that they are just being used as worker
but to let them know that they are learning.

Providing teaching aids by the government: the government have an important role to play in
revamping teaching of agriculture in schools. School farms are starved of funds, the government
has to make sure that here is enough fund in schools to stimulate any vocational programmed if it
is to meet the standard of vocational education and create awareness in the pupils.

Instructional material like textbooks, chalkboard, models, charts, television, radio and other
projected and no project devices or tools, which bring about efficiency and effectiveness in the
teaching/learning process. Osuala(2004)

Development of vocational skills in agricultural science require a lot of funds for repairing and
replacing of faulty equipment, employing more qualified staff, buying of fertilizers, therefore if
all these are present then teaching of agricultural science will be revamped.

Another way to revamp is by promoting organizations of young farmers’ club (Y.F.C.) Young
Farmers’ club as a voluntary and democratic youth organization for boys and girls of between
10-25 years of age, and whose main objective is to develop the interest of our youths in
agriculture.

This programme is primarily designed to teach young people especially the students. In order to
curb the problems of ignorance in agriculture, the government, community and the entire school
should help to intensify this club by assisting in the supply of tractor, hiring service, imposed
seeds and other inputs.

Acquire more land for school farms. The government of the day has makes it mandatory that
school and colleges should keep farms. A school farm in this context is a piece of land located
within or around the school and used for cultivation of crops and rearing of animals. Essentially,
school farms are geared towards helping students to acquire necessary arming skills and ensuring
that classroom theories are backed up by facts and practices. Egbule(2004)
To provide students with opportunity of acquiring knowledge, skills and needed competencies in
agriculture, the school farms should be enlarged. . The community, which the school is located
could be approached to donate enough land for schools’ agricultural programmes. Schools and
colleges may also acquire land through the ‘land use decree’. It is advisable therefore to make
schools farms as large as possible but should not be too large as to become a burden to both the
agricultural science teachers, the students as well as the administration.

Another means of revamping teaching of agriculture is by finding alternative sources of water:

the school should make sure that water is made available in school because water is life. This can
be done by maybe as for boreholes from the government by making dams and water reservoirs.

Dynamic methods of teaching - For agricultural science to be improved at secondary school

levels, agricultural science teacher must be a professional who combines knowledge of what he
teaches with appropriate methods and techniques of teaching. A teaching strategy is an
integration of method and techniques, which has to reflect expected activities for both teachers
and learners for teaching/learning process

Any method that is adopted by the agricultural science teaches in the actual teaching exercise
must lead to the development of ideas, concept understanding and attitudes by the students.
Agricultural science by a practical oriented subject requires practices with diverse teaching
methods like demonstration, project, field trip/excursion, laboratory work, discussion a 8.nd
many more. Ofodile(2006)

In conclusion the improvement of agricultural science programmes in secondary schools has

certain hindrances like unqualified personnel, improper use of methods, insufficient land and so
on. The improvements on these factors are necessary for the preparation of youths who
will take up agriculture as their future career.
 REFERENCES

Egbule, P(2004). Fundamentals & practice of agricultural education. Owerri: Totan

Publishers Ltd.

Ofodile, Stella N.(2006). Agricultural science methodology, Annyco Publishers Nigeria

Osuala, E (2004). Foundation of vocational ducation. ,Cheston Agency Ltd.

Ughammadu, K(1992), Educational technology and micro teaching for teaching

effectiveness. Emba Printing and Publishing Company

Phillips, L (1980). Handbook on agricultural education in public school. Printers and

Publishers.