The career preferences for undergraduate students at the school of agricultural sciences in Makerere University

Abstract

Over the past decades, it has been known that those who trained in agriculture (and agribusiness) avoid it as a career due to the fact that it is largely related to rural economies, where basic amenities and infrastructure are either not existing or in a state of disrepair. Therefore, the youth, for a long time, have viewed agriculture as a profession with high degree of inferiority. Nonetheless, the literature is gradually growing on the related debate to know the reasons why agriculture as a course of study is not attractive to students as their first choice and why many graduates of agriculture are not keen to pursue a career in agribusiness and its related fields. Due to this anomaly, a study was carried out in Makerere University to assess the career preferences for students at the School of Agricultural sciences (SAS) using a sample size of 120 respondents where 3 programs/courses were considered in the study. 40 students were randomly selected from each of the 3 courses i.e. BARI, BAGM and BSc. Agric. The results of the study revealed that (11.5%) of the students were able and certain about their career choices as early as year one. (21.5%) of students in year two were already knowledgeable of the agricultural careers they want to pursue. (52.9%) of the students in year three/finalists were certain and specific about the career they want to pursue in agriculture. (14.4%) of the students in year four also were certain about the particular agricultural jobs they wanted to pursue. Furthermore, it is also revealed that a unit increase of the undergraduate student’s first year leads to an 89.868 increase in the probability for a student to pursue an agricultural career keeping other factors constant. In addition, a rare or slight agricultural background or involvement increases the student’s odd of choosing an agricultural career path by 116.390. Furthermore, a unit increase in admitting students from agricultural vocational institutes which also increases the students’ probability for choosing an agricultural career by 388.648. Results of the study further reveal that a unit increase in expenses like tuition reduce a student’s choice for an agricultural career by 2.565.Suggestions were made that the university or other agricultural institutions should regulate the tuition fees for students because the results revealed that higher tuition fees reduce the probability of a student to choose an agricultural career. There should also be more seminars and conferences conducted to enlighten freshers or first year students about the different opportunities resident in the particular course they are offering.