Youth transition, agricultural education and employment in Uganda: Freeing individual agency

The reality of the troubles young sub-Saharan Africans encounter in navigating confining social settings to become productive workers and flourishing citizens continues to attract all sorts of theoretical and social policy assumptions. One such prominent assumption is the idea that increased youth participation in agri-education and work has the potential to stem difficult transitions. The related assumption that youth are less keen to plunge their learning and work life in agriculture poses a huge education and labour policy dilemma in Uganda and similar contexts across SSA. Amid this dilemma are narratives, which seem to underplay the influential social arrangements that structure not only the youth education-work trajectories but also the perceptions and practices of the other social actors. Deficit narratives that often attempt to frame the youth as authors of their own troubled transitions abound socio-economic development discourse. Moreover mainstream research paradigms do have a traditional focus on macro and meso structures; and are characterised by limited methodological interest into the voices and experiences of frontline social actors.  

This qualitative study is an in-depth examination of personal and contextual influences on young people’s agricultural education-employment transitions; and exploration of how to improve transition processes for optimising learning and labour market outcomes. The findings reveal unprecedented resilience and volitions of young people to advance their education-work trajectories despite the structural barriers. The study showed latent agency and enthusiasm amongst some micro social actors to support young people in their education-work transitions but are often constrained by confining social arrangements. It yielded robust evidence into the difficulties to cause agricultural education system improvements for better student outcomes but also delivered incredible insights for making change possible. Accordingly, this thesis argues for freeing and nurturing the individual agency of young people to pursue valued aspirations and actions in navigating constricting agri-education and work pathways. The proposition for agency freedom of social actors, especially agri-educators to practise craftsmanship, democracy and associated transformative approaches in redeeming agricultural education as a driver of youth transition is equally core.

Proefschrift: http://hdl.handle.net/11370/04f531e6-ec0a-431d-80f7-fce8d130bac9