Candidates' Weakness
Candidates were unable to:
- differentiate between land ownership by leasehold and land ownership by freehold;
- state the ways in which rural-urban migration has hindered agricultural development in West Africa;
- state the advantages and disadvantages of using biogas as a source of farm power;
- list common storage structures and processing structures found on farmsteads in West Africa;
- explain denitrification;
- discuss the cultivation of Cowpea;
- state the cultural methods of controlling crop pests;
- describe alley cropping and ley farming;
- calculate percentage unfertilized eggs, fertilized eggs, male and female chicks in an incubator;
- - state the signs that indicate the approach of parturition in a cow;
- - state the advantages of grafting;
- - state the reasons why the prices of most agricultural produce are unstable in West
Africa;
- explain agricultural extension methods such as method demonstration and
agricultural shows;
- state the advantages of selection as a method of crop improvement.
Based on the observed weaknesses the Chief Examiners recommended as follow:
- Aspects of the syllabus such as farm mechanization/Agricultural engineering, crop and animal improvement, agricultural extension amongst others should be emphasized by teachers; and
- Only graduates of Agricultural Science/Agriculture should be allowed to teach the subject in Senior Secondary Schools in West Africa.