Evaluation of the Master of Arts in Teaching Agriculture (MATEA) Program

This study was conducted to: 1) determine the educational philosophies of the MATEA program; 2) determine the extent of available manpower, physical resources and educational practices, and conditions and activities designed to achieve the educational objectives of the program; 3) make comparative analysis of the results of evaluations made by different respondents of the program; and 4) derive some policy guidelines for the renovation or reorientation of the MATEA program and for the development of similar programs.

Eighteen training centers in six school divisions under three accrediting institutions in Regions II, VI, and XI in the Philippines were involved in the study. There were 306 respondents, composed of 234 students, 39 instructors, and 33 administrators of the MATEA program. Data were collected using an interview schedule.

Results showed that two of these three accrediting institutions were offering bachelor's degrees in agriculture and agricultural education, and two of them also had graduate courses aside from the MATEA. The majority of the centers (75%) were central elementary school. Each accreditation institution had an average of 50 training centers, with an average enrollment of 75 students per center. On the average, there were three classes held per center, with two instructors employed. The majority of the classes (82%) were in vocational agriculture. Only one-sixth of the centers (16.7%) had books on technical agriculture in their libraries prior to being selected as centers. Also, the majority of the centers (72.2%) did not purchase any book for use by MATEA students and only one-third of them (33.3%) claimed to have purchased periodicals using MATEA funds.

Teaching modules were produced and sold to the centers by one of the accrediting institutions but only 12.2 percent of them purchased such modules. Slightly more than one-half of the income (50.44%) derived from tuition of a center was left for the honoraria of its staff, facilities, and projects; the rest were remitted to the accrediting institution. Uncollected fees from the centers ranged from 3 to 100 percent four months after the semester had elapsed.

MATEA scholarships were offered to MATEA instructors by one of the accrediting institutions using MATEA funds.

The study also reveal that the standard requirements for admission of student applicant and qualifications of instructors, as set forth in the circular for MATEA implementation, were not observed.

The majority of the students (67.09%) were not teachers of elementary agriculture; some (17.09%) were not handling green revolution projects; and others (1.96%) had less than two years experience in the service. Graduates of the two-year Elementary Teachers Certificate (ETC) were admitted to the program, which comprised 3.42 percent of the student respondents. No one had undergraduate orientation in agriculture. A little less than two-thirds (64.1%) of the instructors were BS degree holders, 12.8 percent of whom had degrees not related to agriculture. Thirsty-six percent of them did not have any graduate unit. The rest of the instructors (35.9%0 were MS degree holders but only about one-third of them had degrees in the fields of agriculture and agricultural education.

The majority of the instructors (61.54%) were in the teaching job; the rest were administrators and supervisors. Less than one-half of them (46.15%) came from state colleges and agricultural schools and more than one-third of them (35.9%) came from elementary schools.

Most of them (61.54%) claimed to have been recruited to teach in the MATEA without applying for the position. Similarly, the majority of the administrator respondents (69.7%) were automatically given the positions in the MATEA by virtue of their holding respectable positions in their respective stations. There was no uniform amount of honoraria received by instructors and administrators from the MATEA and the honoraria standards set by the Office of Compensation and Position Classification (OCPC) for the MATEA program were far from being followed. The honoraria of instructors ranged from P234.28 while those of the administrators ranged from P68.00 to P1,000.00 per month, with an average of P323.90.

The major reasons of students for enrolling in the MATEA were to acquire technical know-how in fundamental agriculture and salary increments. The purposes of the MATEA program were the improvement of teacher's competencies in teaching elementary agriculture and in handling green revolution projects, and increase of teachers' salaries and chances for promotions. It was also revealed in the study that most of the students and administrators (50.45% and 48.48%, respectively) seemed to favor training centers to be in elementary schools while the majority of the instructors (58.97%) had indicated preferences for centers to be in agricultural schools and colleges.

The major comments of the respondents on the MATEA program was the lack of facilities, especially reading materials. Respondents perceived the extent of human and physical resources, and educational practices and activities of the whole MATEA program to be moderately extensive and were functioning well with a pooled mean score of 4.1 when the eight areas of the program were included, and 4.2 when the area on the thesis research was excluded. The weakest areas of the program were ranked as follows: recruitment/admission of students, facilities, administration and supervision, and instruction. On the other hand, the strong areas were ranked as follows: members of the faculty, curriculum, philosophy and objectives, and thesis research.

The strongest item found in the areas of evaluation was "the philosophy and objectives of the program being geared toward achievement of national development goals" with a mean score of 5.0 while the lowest was the "degree of scholarship considered for admission to the course" with a mean score of 2.6. Findings revealed that there were no significant differences in the evaluation made by the students, instructors, and administrators of the MATEA program as a whole. By program area evaluation, a significant difference was found only in administration and supervision, where the mean scores of students and instructors were significantly different. The administrators and the students were found to be the most lenient or liberal evaluators of the program while the instructors were the most stringent or conservative evaluators.

Based on the results of the study, the interval evaluators tended to conceal inefficiencies and inadequacies of the program. Overall, the mean scores of the region groups differed significantly from one another, with the Western Visayas group having the highes score of 4.4 and the Cagayan Valley group having the lowest with 4.1. The mean score of the Southern Mindanao group (that is, without thesis research) was 4.2. By program area evaluation, it was only in the areas of philosophy and objectives and recruitment/admission of students where the three region groups perceived the same extent of provisions available. As a whole, the results tended to suggest a vigorous revitalization of the program and many improvements to be made particularly in the critical or weak areas of the program.