Effect of Enlightenment on Increase Participation of Prospective Members in Cooperative Business

This study finds out the effects of enlightenment on increase participation of prospective members in cooperative business. A survey research method was employed for the study. The research questions that guided the study were: how relevant is public enlightenment to cooperative performance? What is the impact of enlightenment on increased membership cooperatives? What are the factors militating against cooperative societies in conducting public enlightenment? A questionnaire bases on five point likert scale was used for the data collection. Simple percentages were used to analyze the data based on the respondents’ demographic variables while mean was used to analyze the data from the research questions asked. Tables were used to summarize the results. Research results show that public enlightenment is relevant for effective cooperative performance. That enlightenment facilitates efficient cooperative management as it creates favourable public opinion and support towards cooperative which is important to cooperative management and that public enlightenment is confronted by so many problems such as members’ attitude, lack of trained enlightenment officials, irregularity of such enlightenment and poor methods of carrying out the enlightenment campaign. It was recommended among others that the cooperative members should be made to see the significance of public enlightenment by the cooperative management. This will make them to contribute towards such enlightenment programmes knowing that they are important to cooperative performance. Trained personnel in the area of enlightenment should be sought and used for enlightenment campaigns. This could be obtained from entertainment houses or from radio and television houses.