Faculty of Agriculture

Preamble

Experiential learning is the process of learning through experience, and is more specifically defined as "learning through reflection on doing”.It is a hands-on learning form of experiential learning by involving students reflecting on their product in which the learner plays a comparatively passive role. It requires self-initiative, an "intention to learn" and an "active phase of learning”. Professional education applications apply experiential learning techniques in training students at all levels within the business and professional environment. Keeping this in view, Agricultural University has started implementing the Agricultural Experiential Learning Programme (AELP) since 2010for final year B.Sc (Ag) students during VIII Semester of Under Graduate course. During this programme, students will be exposed to the ELP unit with great zeal and enthusiasm to experience, reflect, conceptualize and experiment on their own where experiential learning actively involves the learner in a concrete experience.

The programme will be monitored by a team of teachers who serve as guide for effective mentoring and nurturing the entrepreneurial abilities of the budding entrepreneurs. The pilot project of the concerned unit enable the students to know the socio economic feasibility of the technology which in turn make them to scale up with the coming demands in future. During this programme, students exhibit genuine commitment towards work, evolve extra ordinary innovative ideas and comeout with meticulous and systematic planning in executing the operations of the unit. In addition, while involving in production process, students also get an opportunity to acquire and exhibit persuasive communication skills to market their products to the consumers. Students at the end of the AELP, come out with new skill set move forward with high esteem and self confidence with future aspirations to become job providers rather than job seekers. ELP provides opportunities for creativity where there is always more than one solution for a problem in the real world. This manual for ELP gives direction to the students to have a better chance to learn that lesson when they get to interact with real life experiences to realize their dreams as a successful entrepreneurs.

Student READY Programme

Preamble

The curriculum of the UG programme in faculty of Agriculture now renamed as B Sc (Hons.) Agriculture, includes an innovative component called student READY (“Rural Entrepreneurship Awareness Development Yojana”) programmas an essential prerequisite for the award of degree to ensure hands on experience and practical training to students. The programme aims to reorient graduates of agriculture and allied subjects for ensuring and assuring employability and develop entrepreneurs for emerging knowledge intensive agriculture. Student READY programme was launched by the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India on 25th July, 2015.

The term READY refers to “Rural and Entrepreneurship Awareness Development Yojana” and the programme was conceptualized to reorient graduates of Agriculture and allied subjects for ensuring and assuring employability and develop entrepreneurs for emerging knowledge intensive agriculture. The fifth deans committee envisages the introduction of thestudent READY programme in all the Agricultural Universities as an essential prerequisite for the award of degree to ensure hands on experience and practical training by adopting the following components depending on the requirements of respective discipline and local demands.

Components of the student READY programme

• Experiential Learning
• Rural Agriculture Work Experience
• In Plant Training/ Industrial attachment
• Hands-on training ( HOT) / Skill development training – 24 Weeks
• Students Projects- 10 weeks
• All the above mentioned components are interactive and are conceptualized for building skills in project development and execution, decision-making, individual and team coordination, approach to problem solving, accounting, quality control, marketing and resolving conflicts, etc. with end to end approach.

In our University the new curriculum as per ICAR Vth Dean’s committee report is being offered from 2016- 17 admitted batch i.e, 2016 onwards. Hence this student READY programme/ component is required to be implemented from 2019-2020. Of the stated five components in our university it is proposed to include three components during the final year of B.Sc (Hons.) Agriculture. During 7th semester two components i.e., Rural Agriculture Work Experience programme for 0+18 credits (RAWEP) and Industrial attachment for 0+2 credits. Duration of the RAWEP is proposed for 4 months and Industrial attachment for 2 months. In the final 8th semester AELP for 0+20 or 0+10 two modules is proposed for a duration of five months. The following are the features and objectives of these three components.

Rural Agricultural Work Experience

The Rural Agricultural Work Experience (RAWE) helps the students primarily to understand the rural situations, status of Agricultural technologies adopted by farmers, prioritize the farmersproblems, prepare farm and village development plans and to develop skills & attitude of working with farm families for overall development in rural area. The timings for RAWEP proposed coincide with the main cropping season. The main objectives of this component are:

• To provide an opportunity to the students to understand the rural setting in relation to agriculture and allied activities.
• To make the students familiar with socio-economic conditions of the farmers and their problems.
• To impart diagnostic and remedial knowledge to the students relevant to real field situations through practical training.
• To develop communication skills in students using extension teaching methods in transfer of technology.
• To develop confidence and competence to solve agricultural problems.
• To acquaint students with on-going extension and rural development programmes.

In Plant Training (IPT)/ Industrial Attachment

Technology and globalization are ushering an era of unprecedented change. The need and pressure for change and innovation is immense. To enrich the practical knowledge of the students, in-plant training shall be mandatory in the last semester for a period of up to 8 weeks. In this training, students will have to study a problem in industrial perspective and submit the reports to the university. Such in-plant trainings will provide an industrial exposure to the students as well as to develop their career in the high tech industrial requirements. In-Plant training is meant to correlate theory and actual practices in the industries with the following objectives:

• To expose the students to Industrial environment, which cannot be simulated in the university.
• To familiarize the students with various Materials, Machines, Processes, Products and their applications along with relevant aspects of shop management.
• To make the students understand the psychology of the workers, and approach to problems along with the practices followed at factory.
• To make the students understand the scope, functions and job responsibility-ties in various departments of an organization.
• Exposure to various aspects of entrepreneurship during the programme.

Experiential Learning

Experiential Learning (EL) helps the student to develop competence, capability, capacity building, acquiring skills, expertise, and confidence to start their own enterprise and turn job creators instead of job seekers. This is a step forward for “Earn while you Learn” concept. Experiential Learning is an important module for high quality professional competence and practical work experience in real life situation to Graduates. The module with entrepreneurial orientation of production and production to consumption pattern is expected to facilitates producing Job Providers rather than Job Seekers.

The EL provides the students an excellent opportunity to develop analytical and entrepreneurial skills, and knowledge through meaningful hands on experience, confidence in their ability to design and execute project work. The main objectives of EL are:

• To promote professional skills and knowledge through meaningful hands on experience.
• To build confidence and to work in project mode.
• To acquire enterprise management capabilities.