Publicity of Livestock Training Institutes in Kenya

Abstract

Educational publicity is undertaken to give the public accurate and complete understanding of Education Institutions. Publicizing the Livestock Training Institutes (LTIs) has been an annual event since the inception of Training frontline Agricultural Extension staff in Post Independent Kenya. The responsibilities of the publicity have cost implications. This study was prompted by the practical concern of finding a cost effective way of publicizing the Livestock Training Institutes of the State Department of Livestock more efficiently in the current Constitutional set up of devolved functions of the Counties, and the Mandate of the LTIs carrying out a national function as Educational Institutions. The objectives of the study were to find out the most effective means of publicity in the counties, to establish if there was a gender difference in relation to the means of publicity and to establish the students motivation in undertaking the AHITI course. Survey design was adopted and all 630 students in the LTIs responded to a questionnaires ensuring that even the marginalized counties with very few students participated in the study. The survey established that the most popular publicity channel differed by county, with majority of the students pointing out that information from former students and parents were the most effective means of publicity.  Further, the findings indicated that there was a relationship between gender and effective  publicity channels between the Counties. A big group of the LTI students (45%) intended to go into self-employment while minority (24%) intended to seek gainful employment.

Keywords: Educational Publicity, Student Career Guidance, Livestock Training Institutes.