IMPORTANCE OF STUDYING COOPERATIVE ECONOMICS AND

MANAGEMENT IN INSTITUTIONS (A STUDY OF FCA, ISHIAGU)

 
PRESENTED BY
RAMU JONAS OKECHUKWU
FCAI/CEM/ND/2018/2019/0239

 
SUBMITTED TO
DEPARTMENT OF COOPERATIVE ECONOMICS AND
MANAGEMENT,
FEDERAL COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE, ISHIAGU, EBONYI STATE.

SUPERVISOR
Mr. Sasiq Kolade
FEBURARY, 2021
Background of the Study
 Co-operatives action takes place when individuals pool their resources
together which are often meager in an effort to obtain what is needed by
all but cannot be obtained by the use of an individual’s resources, talents,
time, information or effort. This habit has existed since the origin of
humanity, that is, since the time that human beings started living together
on the basis of family unit and/or in a community. Co–operation is
customary and instinctive solidarity.
 Today, in an era when many people feel powerless to change their lives,
cooperatives represent a strong, vibrant, and viable economic alternative.
Cooperatives are formed to meet peoples’ mutual needs. They are based
on the powerful idea that together, a group of people can achieve goals
that none of them could achieve alone
Background of the Study
 The Department of Co-operative economics and management was
established as a separate department in Federal College of Agriculture,
Ishiagu in January, 2016 at National Diploma Level and in 2019, Higher
National Diploma was established and since ever produced two batches of
graduates but at National Diploma. The programme co-operative
Economics and management indicates that the teaching of the subject (co-
operative) will rise above the merely descriptive level. It employs tools of
economics and management in the study of co-operative Enterprise. The
department slots into its curriculum courses taken from the field of
Economics and management and it also taught by experts from their fields.
Hence there is need to conduct a study to ascertain the importance of
studying the course in the institution.
Statement of Problem
 Human beings are not predictable in any environment, there are
most interesting and important resources in the enterprise. Human
beings make decisions concerning other resources.
 A major personnel activity is to train and educate co-operative
members to facilitate and quicken their learning and acquisition of
skills and knowledge, since their present inventories of capabilities
are partly a consequence of their past learning. Unfortunately, co-
operative institutions always set high level of performance for their
members without appreciating the fact that the performance is a
function of training, education, and other variables.
Statement of Problem (Cont)
 They fastly attribute lack of performance to inability of their members
and failing to realize the fact that a person, tackling inability can make up
through proper training, education and motivation.
 The following information shows why some co-operative institutions
especially the large ones have specific training programmes, a good
number of others shows apathy in training and education to their
members and infact see it as a wasteful expenditure on the part of the
organization. The fact is that some of these members are left to wither
away because they remain unproductive. It is for this reason that if is
said that untrained student is a liability to any organization, therefore
emphasizes the need for regular training and education of co-operative
students by the Nigeria Tertiary Institution.
Research Questions
 Base on the above stated problems, the following questions are
formulated to guide the research:
 Are individual training and education determined in FCA, Ishiagu on co-
operative matters?
 How are individual pre-training needs determined in FCA, Ishiagu?
 Are these students needs satisfied to yield desired result?
 Has the training and study of the course yielded positive results on
students understanding of cooperatives?
Objective of the Study
 The broad objective of this study is to determine the importance of
studying cooperative economics and management in Institutions with
special reference to Federal College of Agriculture, Ishiagu, while the
specific objectives are to:
 Determine how individual training and education on cooperative
determined in the study area
 Ascertain if the students are satisfied with the results of the study and
training.
 examine the contributions of the course to students understanding of
cooperatives in the study area
 Make recommendation on the findings.
Significance of the Study
 First and for all, the findings and recommendations to be made from this
study can be of much help to students of co-operative and Business
Administration in general and in other field who may wish to investigate
the subject of training and education in any other organization. With the
measure of this study, it will be so useful to the institution and it will help
it appreciate more, the purpose of proper training of its staff is for
learning and teaching process. Teaching process will help both the
students and the staff to be productive in all the department of the
institution will also definitely increase.
 However, this research work will afford or create an opportunity to
undertake a research work for the first time on in-depth study in all field
of study of interest.
Scope of the Study
 This research centers on the institution and will cover the part training
progamme carried out by institutions on cooperative economics and
management.
Limitation of Study
 A research work of this nature cannot come to an end without
limitation. The researcher encountered numerous problems which
affected the smooth running of the work. These problems includes,
difficulty in procuring materials for the project, time factor and
financial constraints
Literature Review

 Literature Review Were Carried out under the following Headings:

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
 31 . Research design
 The research design used in this study is survey research method. This
survey research method is the descriptive method in educational
research. The researcher used this descriptive research design to obtain
the actual information on the role of co-operative society on poverty
alleviation
 3.2 Sources of Data
 In gathering data for this study, two main sources were employed. These
are primary and secondary sources. The primary sources include data
from direct responses to interviews with selected respondents,
participant observation, structured questionnaires.
 Secondary sources of data include textbooks, government documents
and publications, resource materials from the Internet, journals,
conference/seminar papers, “archival” materials, etc.
Area of Study
 The area covered by the investigation is Federal College of Agriculture,
Ishiagu. Federal college of agriculture, Umudike now at Ishiagu as the
training wing of national root crop research institute situated at
Umudike, in Abia State. She still trains staff of NRCRI in Advance
Certificate, National and Higher Diplomas. The relocation of the college
to Ishiagu in1993 made way for the establishment of federal university of
Agriculture now Micheal Opera university of Agriculture, Umudike.
Ishiagu being the new location is quite suitable for academic and
agricultural work. Presently, the college occupies an area of 200
hectares.
Population of the study
 The target population of the study are the population of CEM students in

FCA, Ishiagu, which was used for the investigation. The population of the

study to be used is one hundred and twenty (150) of CEM students which

was randomly selected from the study under investigation.

Method of data collection
 The questionnaire is the instrument for the research study which was
design only for the students of CEM department. The questionnaire was
prepared by the researcher to suit the research question before
administering the questionnaire.
Method of data analysis
 Statistical technique was used for the analysis of data collected from

the respondents is the percentage. The formulae used for

calculation is; number of respondents multiplied by one hundred

divided by the total number of respondents. The data collected from

the respondents would undergo the percentage analysis

Findings
After collecting, analyzing the data, the following findings were made.
That a great percentage of staff of CEM have not undergone any
cooperative training since they joined CEM and that there is little or no
job relation in the institution to expose staff in various operations or
activities of the establishment.
That those who have undergone formal training in CEM did so greatly
on their own if compared to what is obtainable in CEM. Those who are
currently undergoing one form of training are only a faction of the
entire staff.
.
Findings (cont)
 The CEM does not run training program for its staff in spite of the fact
that a good number of them have the desire to improve themselves,
through education, training and by coming together to form one
cooperative or the other.
 That to some degree, there is apartheid with regard to the course
cooperative studies as many of its students do not know what awaits
them after their degree exams.
 That most of the staff of CEM are not satisfied that they are not exposed
to such training by the institution and
 That this state of affairs has highly demoralized the majority of the entire
staff and this results to low productivity to the detriment of the students
and the entire institution at large
Summary
 This study was conducted to examine the Importance of studying
cooperative economics and management in institutions using
Federal College of Agriculture, Ishiagu as a case study, the study
was guided by four research objectives which were met from the
findings of the study, both primary and secondary source of data
were used for the research; primary data were sourced from the use
of structured questionnaire, with a sample size of one hundred (10)
respondents.
Summary (cont)
 The findings of the study reveals a great percentage of staff of CEM
have not undergone any cooperative training since they joined CEM
and that there is little or no job relation in the institution to expose
staff in various operations or activities of the establishment, those
who have undergone formal training in CEM did so greatly on their
own if compared to what is obtainable in CEM. Those who are
currently undergoing one form of training are only a faction of the
entire staff. That CEM does not run training program for its staff in
spite of the fact that a good number of them have the desire to
improve themselves, through education, training and by coming
together to form one cooperative or the other. Based on these
findings, conclusion are drawn and recommendations made.
Conclusion
 The topic “Importance of Studying Co-operative Economics and
Management uses institution as its focal point whereby the
institution is a processing unit that produces adequate, capable,
effective manpower to carry out cooperative activities for its growth
and development.
 In this case education, training and development are very essential
because they are the tools and the measure that will be used in
imparting the cooperative rules and principles. They can be used as
a key motivator of members and it enhance efficiency when what is
needed is what is given , however efficiency must be attained. Is
only through this process that efficient and skilled personnel
needed for effective management can be selected in order to meet
the organizational objective.
Conclusion (cont)
 This acquaint members to perform their job with confidence and
ability. In this case members benefit and the institution as well.
Organization or he institute benefit when they attained their
objective with capable hands and all it takes to attain the height is
available and effective. When this is done, institute will enjoy
increase in productivity.
Recommendations
Base on the findings and conclusion of the study, the researcher therefore
make the following recommendations:-
 That the institution should as a matter of urgency and priority work out a
more generalized and viable programme on the training and
development of co-operative members or staff of CEM department such
as in-service training, on the job training, etc, and conferences and
inculcating into them the academic curriculum or sending them to any
other institution.
 Since a great percentage of staff are eager to improve themselves
through co-operative training, the management should ensure that such
member of the staff are encouraged to do so, or give some supplements
in case when management cannot afford to bear the whole cost of
training, is highly essential because with these skills, training , etc,
acquired, helps to solve members socio economic and political problems.
Recommendations
 In case where some members of the staff do not want to have anything to do with
cooperative, management should as a matter of fact educate such people about
the importance of studying cooperative economics and management.
 This could be done by reminding them that no man can live in isolation and that the
institutions need collective work as to move forward, and carefully make them
understand that the world needs cooperation for survival and growth and
development.
 The researcher also recommended that every worker should be given the
opportunity to practice what he or she has acquired from any training programme.
 Apart from Advanced scientific teaching of cooperative science, many universities
engage in basic or applied cooperative research to provide scientific justification for
theories and practice of cooperation. For maximum efficiency staff and students,
members and public should be educated about cooperative but most especially
staff and students of tertiary institution (FCAI), who have more chances of attaining
this advance scientific teaching level of cooperative education.
Thanks