BARRIERS TO EXTENSION EDUCATION

INTRODUCTION
Extension education plays a very important role in development. In a broad perspective, it contains all aspects of improvement in the quality of both urban and rural life. It is through training that people get awareness hence move into action so as to better their lives. However, there are factors that pose a constraint to extension education limiting the effectiveness of interventions introduced through programs. These barriers include:
I. ILLITERACY
Although the right of education is acknowledged as one of the basic rights of children, many developing countries have not succeeded in bringing this about. Africa reports an illiteracy rate of fifty four percent of which the rate of illiterate women is higher than that of men. Most of the people are still illiterate and it is a difficult task to train a large number of people, for example, ten thousand individuals living in about six villages. For such population, extension methods like demonstration, individual approaches, exhibitions, group meetings, and training classes require thousands of extension workers which is not possible particularly in developing countries.
In addition, illiteracy can impede the communication of improved technology hence hindering extension education; for example, assume an extension worker wants to train cattle farmers in West Pokot District on better methods of breeding and raising their animals where majority of the people have never been in class. In such a case, an interpreter may be required who can understand both the clients and the change agent’s language and in the process, the message can be distorted leading to difficulties in understanding the innovation the change agent wants to introduce. Education is therefore very important for success of any extension-training program.

II. INADEQUATE NUMBERS AND QUALIFICATION OF STAFF
Extension organizations in developing countries face the major problems of professional incompetence and lack of motivation among their employees. In addition, many of the agricultural extension departments of these countries do not have a well-defined system of human resource management. Proper planning and management of human resources within extension organizations is essential to increase the capabilities, motivation, and overall effectiveness of extension personnel.

Extension organizations in developing countries do not have clearly defined job descriptions or job specifications for extension personnel. Actual utility of job descriptions in these organizations is complicated by factors such as work overload, seasonality of extension, the range of cropping systems, and distribution of extension service over a large area. Studies analyzing the role of extension agents reveal that they face work-related problems such as role ambiguity and lack of job authority, expertise, and accountability leading to ineffectiveness in extension work. In Tanzania for example, the lower yields of tobacco in Urambo Scheme in comparison with those of Tumbi scheme are often attributed to a shortage of extension staff at Urambo.Reports by officials in Urambo argue that the staffing constraint made it difficult to supervise new farmers and to continue to encourage and help the old farmers of Urambo in maintaining the improved methods of production (Uma Lele, pp.69).
The administrative and technical quality of the available staff has also been poor, restricting the scope of expansion services. In Ethiopia, for example, even the substantial training of field staff being carried out by programs such as Extension and Project Implementation Department and by the additional nationally run training centers has not been adequate relative to manpower needs. The supply of trained extension staff remains one of the major constraints to expansion of even the very modest level of services that the Minimum Package Programs aims to provide. Low levels of technical competence among the field staff and poor incentive systems remain an equally severe constraint to improved performance in Kenya and Tanzania.
III. POOR INFRASTRUCTURE
Infrastructure particularly the condition of transport, communication, and market facilities affects both farmers and extension. The capacity to move people, inputs, and produce and to send and receive information influences extension activities and capacity. Market infrastructure itself may be lacking or inadequate.
 Transportation: In developing countries, there are areas that cannot be reached by road due to the poor condition of the roads, for example, most areas of North Eastern province in Kenya. On the other hand, transport vehicles for extension workers may be in short supply. In either case, farmers under these conditions are difficult to reach with improved technology, and they will have problems of transporting inputs and farm produce.
For example, input supply outlets in most developing countries are far apart and excessive transport distances make it difficult or impossible for traditional farmers to adopt new technology. Extension workers may be willing to help such people but due to inadequate transport systems, it becomes practically impossible.
 Communication: Communication is a force for change. Information targeted at rural farmers can help them increase the quantity and improve the quality of food they produce. Just as important is the information collected from them. Transfer of technical information from the source to the desired audience requires appropriate channels of communication. This process of information transmission is used in agricultural extension to enhance the adoption of new technologies.

Communication infrastructure however, can impose additional constraints for extension organizations. Rural farmer’s access to mass media such as publications, radios, or television may be limited or lacking thus reducing the options available to extension for communicating its messages. Here in Africa for example, rural farmers experience a lot of problems, as they have no access to information on improved agricultural inputs and techniques. At the same time, extension itself may have little or no access to telephone and radio services for long-range communications. This severely hampers its ability to organize and carry out field operations.
Two aspects of a country’s media organizations both print and audio-visual affect the flow of extension messages to farmers. One is the attitudes and subject interests of media managers responsible for programming for rural audiences and the other one is organizational climate especially morale.
Messages for rural farmers should be framed in a relatively simple manner for easy understanding. For example, when communicating to Kikuyu people on a certain innovation, one can use a local station like inooro fm for the people to understand. In addition, the communicator should be enthusiastic to attract the interest of the audience. Unfortunately, in developing countries the opposite has been happening, for example, very complex messages that are difficult to understand leading to failure in extension education.
IV. LACK OF RESEARCH OR KNOWLEDGE OF TRAINING NEEDS
Agricultural research organizations are extension’s closest institutional partners in technology generation and transfer. The way research is structured and organized and the planning and management of research extension linkages can limit or enhance extension’s effectiveness.
Agricultural research organizations in developing countries confront many problems. These include lack of financial resources, acute shortages of well-trained scientists, lack of farmer’s feedback to ensure relevance of research results, and inadequate research facilities and equipment. Few of these can be addressed by extension managers, but they can impede the generation of technology resulting in fewer research outputs for extension to transfer.
Poor linkages between research and extension are major constraints in technology flow in many developing countries. The linkage problems are of two basic types, those affecting feedback from farmers to research and extension and those relating to co-ordination and co-operation between research and extension. In both cases, the problem is due to lack of proper strategies and adequate resources for linkage tasks

Farmer organizations, particulary grass root organizations are part of the utilization component. They offer an effective channel for extension contact with large number of farmers, as well as opportunities for participatory interaction with extension organizations. Feedback on farmer needs, production problems, and the results of adoption from such groups will be increasingly important considerations.
V. SOCIO-CULTURAL FACTORS
In many developing countries, socio-cultural factors are leading constraints to the effectiveness of extension. Language differences and some cultural practices can impede the communication of improved technology unless they are taken into account. The division of labor between the sexes can differ along cultural lines and influences the nature of farming systems in different regions.
In many developing countries, the men are employed off-farm leaving the farm operations to women. In extension organizations, under-representation of women on the extension force means that the production responsibilities and needs of women at the farm level may not be adequately addressed.
Cultural differences among farmers as well as differences in their resource endowments also need to be taken into account. In particular, these are reflected in land use strategies. Pastoral herders for example will require different types of subject matter expertise, and extension will need to use different strategies to transfer technology to them than to permanent field agriculturalists.
The resource endowments of different categories of farmers also affect technology adoption levels. Subsistence farmers adopt mainly low-cost technologies. For this reason, extension work that focuses on cultural practices and affordable technologies may be more appropriate in countries with resources poor farmers.
Extension workers in addition experience difficulties in transferring their messages due to some cultural practices. For example, in some communities, the young people cannot mix with the old people and in others; men and women cannot sit or work together. In such communities, the extension workers experience a lot of difficulties especially when they have an innovation that involves everybody in the community. They may therefore require a lot of time to communicate their messages to different groups, which may not be possible due to their limited time frame, and the many activities they have.
Other communities, for example maasai, value some practices like female genital mutilation as they believe it controls sex practices among the women and they don’t allow family planning because they value children especially boys. To such people, extension workers experience a lot of difficulties, as they require very careful handling and highly risked workers who have knowledge of things, “how change takes place.”
There is also a problem of a gap between cultural and extension work. In many cases, the lack of relevance of agricultural education to the rural world is a problem for students graduating from the agricultural institutions. The gap between the methods and content taught and the rural socio-cultural context causes difficulties for graduates in establishing good communication with producers. This is especially serious for those with an urban background who go into extension work.
This situation calls for more interaction among academic staff of institutions of higher education in agriculture and members of the farming community, which does not happen. The development of mechanisms and channels of communication, which institutionalize the process of developing, transferring, and utilizing knowledge is of vital importance to extension workers. There should be ensured that there will not be a “cultural gap”, between extension workers and ultimate beneficiaries of the knowledge base of farmers and rural dwellers.
VI. GOVERNMENT POLICIES
The policy component of an agricultural technology system can enable or limit extension in ways beyond the reach of extension managers. The endowment levels for public agricultural extension are set by government policy and planning bodies and imposes limits on expenditures. This can hamper extension efforts in basic ways. The operating as compared to salary budget amounts is often inadequate, with negative effects. For example, a lack of money to buy vehicles and fuel undermines the mobility of extensionists. In addition, if salaries are too low, which is often the case in developing countries, extension cannot attract or hold qualified staff and this leads to ineffective extension services.
Commodity prices influenced by government policy act as incentives or disincentives for farmer production. If there is no profit incentive for production of a specific crop, there is little point in developing or transferring improved technology related to that crop. For example, policies that favor the import of cereal grains at concessionary prices on the international market discourage in country production of these crops. Technology generation and transfer outputs that focus on such crops are not likely to interest farmers thus limiting extension education. The examination of the policy context is important and allows organizations to avoid wasted effort and resources.
VII. INSTITUTIONAL ATTACK
Public sector extension has been and still is under attack from a wide spectrum of politicians and economists over its costs and financing. Public sector extension worldwide has been cricized for not doing enough, not doing it well, and for not being relevant. Extension is criticized for insufficient impact, ineffectiveness, inefficiency, and sometimes for not pursuing programs that foster equity.
In addition, there is system model controversy. The fact of differing system models in different countries attests to the variety and complexity of extension education. Extension mean different things in different places. Accordingly, system model is a major source of controversy raising both political and technical issues.
VIII. NEGLECT OF WOMEN IN AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION
Associated with the failure of many programs to reach the majority of smallholders is the tendency of agricultural extension services to focus their attention on male farmers. Agricultural extension programs ensure that information on new technologies, plant varieties, and cultural practices reaches farmers. However, in the developing world it is a common practice to direct extension and training services primarily towards men.
A recent FAO survey showed that female farmers receive only five percent of all agricultural extension services worldwide and that only fifteen percent of the world’s extension agents are women. In Egypt, for example, women account for fifty three percent of agricultural labor but only one percent of Egyptian extension officers are women. The resulting lack of information undermines women’s productivity as well as their ability to safeguard the environment by using natural resources in a sustainable way.
A study of extension in Africa found several commonly held beliefs which asserted that women are not really significant contributors to agricultural production, they arte always tied down with household chores and children, they are shy, difficult to reach, and resist innovations. However, women often contribute a major proportion of the family farm labour, usually to the production of crops and to specific tasks such as weeding. Perhaps an even more important indication of the women’s role in agriculture is the fact that women head a large percent of rural households.

Extension programs therefore rarely identify women as integral part of the target audience. If they did, the benefits would be considerable. In Kenya, for example, following a nationwide information campaign that targeted at women under a national extension project, yields of corn increased by twenty eight percent, beans by eighty percent, and potatoes by eighty four percent. Therefore, as women are a vital link in agricultural development, it is essential that they take their place alongside men as full participants in and beneficiaries of extension programmes other than being ignored.
IX. AGRO-ECOLOGICAL FACTORS
Due to the fact the natural environment strongly influences extension planning and operations, extension should respond to the technological needs of farmers in different agro-ecological zones. The variation represented by agro-ecological zones in a given country can be substantial. Differences in temperature, rainfall, soil types and others are reflected in the diversity of farming conditions and production systems found.

Extension planners face some difficult choices because of the need to respond to the diverse technology and information needs of farmers from many different zones, and at the same time to satisfy a requirement for extensive countrywide coverage of the rural population. For example, extension resource investments can be determined by farmer population concentrations, potential productivity of selected agro ecological zones, or a combination of both.
X. POLITICAL-ECONOMIC FACTORS
The political and economic environment affects extension in many ways. One of the most significant factors is a country’s stage of economic development. Another is the level of government investment in public sector extension. This is influenced by the presence or the absence of a structural adjustment programme, the degree of economic dependence on agriculture, and the proportion of the population economically active in agriculture as opposed to industry. The percentage of resource-poor smallholder farmers influences the type of technology to be transferred particularly if the government is concerned with the equitable coverage of all categories of farmers.
Politics has another infrequently identified impact on public extension organizations. Political shifts at the national level often result in changes in extension personnel, management, and programmes. High turnover of top managers undermines management experience and continuity in leadership. In addition, political unrest and war often make extension impossible.

XI. IGNORANCE AND RESISTANCE TO CHANGE
Extension education focuses on people from different communities and in the real sense, community people are very difficult to work with due to the fact that they possess different characteristics. A traditional society with old ways and practices may refuse to take risk unless it sees the results. Because change creates insecurity and uncertainty, there is resistance of innovations in many areas and extension workers experience difficulties in dealing with such people.
Other people just ignore the trainings because they don’t find them relevant. For example, an extension worker can take a youth training on risks of premarital sex practices on an urban setting like Majengo, and the youths because they are used to such practices can ignore it As a result, it becomes very difficult for the extensionists to convince such people for a change.
XII. RELIGIOUS DIFFERENCES
Religion can be a major hindrance of extension education. In developing countries, people possess different faiths and beliefs. There are some religions that don’t allow, for example, people to go to hospital or take medicine when they are sick. To such people, it becomes hard for an extension worker to train them on topics like how you can survive with HIV by taking ARVs or reduce infant mortality by taking the sick children to hospital, though there might be victims of the same. In addition, it can be a difficult task especially for a Christian worker to introduce an innovation to Muslims because they reject Christian messages.
Religious differences therefore, in many developing countries become a barrier to extension education.
XIII. LACK OF PEOPLE’S PARTICIPATION
Participation is very essential in extension work. No development can take place without people’s participation. Through participation, community people contribute their resources towards the programs, develop ownership of the project and eventually sustain it because they are part of it and they feel appreciated.
However, in many developing countries, people often fail to participate in extension programmes due to different factors leading to failure in the projects introduced. For example, the remote living conditions of people serve as a constraint to involving them more in planning of extension activities, and the lack of knowledge and interest hinders their involvement.
Failure of people to participate is a major hindrance to extension education because change is of the people, for the people, and by the people and without them; extension work can come to a standstill. For example, some change agents went to a community in Murang’a District and identified that the people were suffering due to few numbers of dispensaries in the area. As a result, they decided to build a Health center for the community without consulting them and started to bring materials to put up the project. Unfortunately the following day, they found that all the materials have been stolen and they were very frustrated. When they asked the community people, the youths said that all they needed was a football pitch but not a hospital and the change agents had to reverse the whole idea after wasting all the resources.
People’s involvement is therefore very important for success of any extension program. The change agents should entice people to participate in projects.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, we find that there are many problems being faced by extension workers to an extent of hindering their work. The citizens, government, and the private sector should therefore take an action to improve the condition of extension work and traditional practices that hinder the adoption of new technology, which increases production, should be broken down.



REFERENCE LIST

Http: //www.krishiworld.com/htm/agri-extension-edu4.html


Haq Khadija, (1989, pp.226-244), Development for People, North South Roundtable Publishers


Nsereko Joseph, (1979, pp.26-44), Agricultural Problems, Kenya Literature Bureau Publishers
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Uma Lele, (1976, pp.62-78), The Design of Rural Development, The Johns Hopkins University Publishers


Bita Nicky