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.