Professional Teaching and Communication Competencies needed by Extension Workers in Central Nigeria

Adoption and utilization of appropriate agricultural technology by rural farmers is largely dependent on the relevance and effectiveness of information dissemination, and the ability of the agents to persuade the fanners. Professional competencies are those skills, knowledge, and attitude extension agents should possess in order to effectively perform their roles as educators; exclusive of technical subjects matter competency. The study was conducted in Central Nigeria. Two States namely Benue, Plateau, and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja were used. Extension administrators; supervisors, and frontline agents from Agricultural Development Programme (ADPs) constituted the population. A sample size of 191 respondents was purposively and systematically (agents’ category) selected for the study. A modified structured questionnaire was usedfor data collection while mean scores andfisher’s protected least significant difference (FOLD < 0.05) were used for analysis. Generally, the study shows that about 99.3% of the professional competencies were considered as in relevance for extension work. Specifically, the respondents rated 51.1% of the professional competencies as very important. Other competencies were rated as important. There was, however a significant difference in perception of the importance of the professional competenciesbetween administrators and the other categories of pa onnel (BES AND VEAS) regarding the importance of certain areas of competencies. The result of the study revealed strong preferencefor in-service training as appropriate time of learning professional teaching and communication competencies by the respondents