dissertation
The study was conducted in Rorya District to investigate factors influencing rural youths'
aspiration towards agriculture, specifically to: assess the rural youth’s occupational
aspirations; determine rural youths’ perception of agriculture as an occupation; determine
the influence of parents, peers and school on the rural youth aspirations and identify
factors that determine rural youth engagement in agriculture. Data were collected from
120 randomly selected rural youth who were out of primary and secondary school but had
failed to pursue further studies. Questionnaires, Focus Group Discussion and key
informant interviews were the main data collection tools. Quantitative data were analyzed
through SPSS where descriptive analysis technique was used while content analysis
technique was used to analyse qualitative data. The study revealed that although most of
the rural youth had a positive perception towards agricultural activities, they aspired to
non-agricultural occupations. Parents were found to be the most influential in youth’s
career choices and aspiration in general. Among factors discouraging the youth from
engaging in agriculture in the study area were low income from agriculture, lack of
agricultural knowledge and experience from parent’s hard life living from agriculture.
Others factors were high cost of agricultural inputs, lack of credit, attitudinal problem, and
backwardness of agricultural tools. Therefore, the study recommends the use of modern
equipment, improvement of extension services programs to enable parents and youth to
become aware of the potential of agriculture and to provide employment opportunities to
rural youth.