Agricultural education in secondary schools is posited as a critical driver for modernising smallholder farming, yet rigorous longitudinal evidence on its effectiveness in promoting sustained technology adoption remains scarce. This study provides a methodological evaluation of the secondary school agricultural education system, aiming to estimate its causal effect on the adoption rates of improved agricultural technologies among school leavers. We employ a balanced panel-data design, tracking a cohort of students from selected schools. The core specification is a fixed-effects model: Adoption₈ₓ = ₀ + ₁ (Education Exposure) ₈ₓ + X₈ₓ + ᵢ + ₈ₓ, where ᵢ denotes individual fixed effects. Inference is based on cluster-robust standard errors. A one-standard-deviation increase in the intensity of practical agricultural education was associated with a 17. 3 percentage point increase in the probability of adopting at least one improved technology (95% CI: 12. 1, 22. 5). The effect was more pronounced for knowledge-intensive practices than for simple input adoption. The secondary school system is a significant, albeit heterogeneous, conduit for agricultural innovation. Its impact is substantively meaningful for sustained technological change. Curriculum development should prioritise experiential, practice-oriented learning. Policy must support schools with resources for practical demonstrations and strengthen linkages with extension services. agricultural education, technology adoption, panel data, fixed effects, Kenya, impact evaluation This paper provides the first application of a student-level panel-data model to isolate the causal effect of secondary agricultural education on post-schooling technology adoption, generating a novel longitudinal dataset for the region.
Ochieng et al. (Wed,) studied this question.