ABSTRACT
The prospects for economic growth in the less developed nations have attracted much attention, both scholarly and political, and how these prospects might be enhanced through expenditures on schooling has been a particular focus for research and policy. Perforce, economic development in these nations cannot be separated from the drive to increase agricultural production. For that reason, the contribution of education to agricultural development and especially the relative contributions of general schooling in literacy or in communication skills and of agriculturally-specific schooling have become a much debated issue. Public support of agricultural training at the various levels of schooling and in such non-formal educational settings as extension lectures is the common translation into public policy of the belief that education will lead to dramatic increases in agricultural production. In most countries, formal agricultural schooling is aimed at affecting potential farmers during the secondary-school years in a traditional agricultural school curriculum, which is linked to a more or less developed system of agricultural extension and experimental farms. 1
