21st century skills required in Eswatini's higher agricultural education curriculum

The skills gap between agricultural education graduates from the University of Eswatini (UNESWA) and what employers are searching for is growing. Literature informs that this is mostly owing to the world's rapid changes, with ICT serving as the primary change engine, necessitating new sets of abilities from graduates as well as up-to-date teaching and evaluation methodologies in higher education institutions. These demands prompted the researchers to first establish the set of 21st century skills that UNESWA graduates must acquire in order to thrive and participate fully in today's market. The study's purpose, therefore, was to develop a set of 21st century skills that could be incorporated into UNESWA's agriculture education curriculum. Phase I used a two-round modified Delphi Technique to investigate the concept dimension and subdimensions of 21st century skills with agricultural education specialists in Eswatini. Phase II employed a survey to triangulate the prior data collection method, population used, and findings by using secondary agriculture teachers in Eswatini to establish the 21st century skill gaps (Round 2) and the highly ranked 21st century skills. Future agriculture education graduates in Eswatini, according to the findings, need to learn 35 particular 21st century skills in order to excel in today's profession and life. These include, but are not limited to, creativity, networking, self-efficacy, problem solving, digital literacy, and others. It is therefore recommended that the University of Eswatini incorporate these abilities into the higher agricultural education curriculum and be intentional in developing them in Eswatini's future agricultural education graduates. As a result, lecturers from the Department of Agricultural Education and Extension would need proper training on how to effectively teach and assess these abilities in their prospective graduates.

Published abstract. Show less