ABSTRACT

Though the concept of age grade has a long history in the lgbo society, it has not been extensively studied as to appraise all its impact towards the rural development of the society. Hence the need for this work, which aims at evaluating it as a rural development tool in the study area. Among the objectives were to identify the l:)ersonal characteristics of the age grade members, determine their level of participation, access their achievements based on their objectives, identify the level of utilization of the projects by the community, and to examine the perception of the people to the contributions of the age grade system. A structured interview and focus -group discussion were used to elicit information from a randomly selected (150) respondents out of which three L.G.As were also randonily selected. After analyzing the data, the major findings revealed that about 52.7% of the respondents were males while the other 47.3% were females. Marital status has a positive influence with the age grade system with a total of 86% of respondents who were married; 60% had formal education. Findings further re.vealed that the age grade system has successfully achieved almost all their laid-down objectives; Based on the Likert-type-scale of analysis, the level of participation was very good with a grand mean score of 4 points, age grade involvement in development project was also rated very good with a of 4 points score, project utilization was rated 3 points, and people's perception toward age grade activities was also rated 3 points; a greater majority of the respondents (62.66%) strongly agreed that the age grade system, should be encouraged in the study area. The hypothesis results rejected the null hypothesis that there was no significant relationship between selected personal characteristics and level of participation of the age grade in rural development. Based on the findings of the research, it was recommended that the government should consider the interest of l:he age grades in her policy matters concerning rural development. Also there is need to encourage the issue of age grade system in other communities were it is not extensively practiced since it has been identified as an agent of soda- economic transformation.