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International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences (IJCMAS)
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Original Research Articles                      Volume : 10, Issue:1, January, 2021

PRINT ISSN : 2319-7692
Online ISSN : 2319-7706
Issues : 12 per year
Publisher : Excellent Publishers
Email : editorijcmas@gmail.com /
submit@ijcmas.com
Editor-in-chief: Dr.M.Prakash
Index Copernicus ICV 2018: 95.39
NAAS RATING 2020: 5.38

Int.J.Curr.Microbiol.App.Sci.2021.10(1): 2731-2747
DOI: https://doi.org/10.20546/ijcmas.2021.1001.318


ICT Training Areas for the Extension Personnel: A Study of Uttarakhand State
Deepti Kothari and V. L. V. Kameswari*
Department of Agricultural Communication, G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, Distt-US Nagar, Uttarakhand, India
*Corresponding author
Abstract:

Information and Communication Technologies are emerging as a key driver of socio-economic growth of an economy. Applications of ICTs in agriculture sector are numerous, because of focus on making more informed decisions in agricultural operations right from the production to the marketing of the output. The skills and knowledge of human resource involved in facilitating the process information exchange in agriculture system is to be enhanced for expecting much greater outcomes in light of use of ICTs for agricultural development. Considering this, inference it is needed that structured training interventions are planned for developing required and essential ICT competencies amongst the extension professionals. The research study has been conducted on extension functionaries of Uttarakhand State with the objective of outlining the ICT training needs. A total of 291 extension professionals and 30 extension supervisors employed in the public extension system comprising of state departments, KVKs and ICAR institutions were selected randomly for the purpose of the study. The results of the study stated that majority of the extension workers were male (67.35%), had less than 10 years of work experience (62.89%), specialized in agricultural sciences (47.77%), possess majority of the mass media means and presence in social media platforms and kept neutral attitude towards use of ICTs (71.82%). Similarly, most of the extension supervisors were also male (76.76%), had working experience of 11 to 21 years (43.33%), specialized in agricultural sciences (43.33%), owned most of the mass media means, were present in many of the social media platforms and kept neutral attitude towards use of ICTs (80%). Both the supervisors and extension personnel identified application of mobile phones in agricultural extension and social media in agricultural extension as their ICT training needs. In terms of application of mobile phone, the need of training in development of mobile application and mobile application for facilitating extension was ranked as a top priority. The training needs related to use of social media were mostly related to understanding the use of social networking platforms and social networking based softwares in performing extension services were highlighted by both supervisors and extension workers. The study concluded that the ICT training needs for the extension personnel of the Uttarakhand must be strategically placed into the agenda of training agencies by development training modules and must be worked upon for putting up a demand-driven, market oriented and need-based agricultural extension system into place.  


Keywords: Training Needs, Extension System, Information and Communication Technologies, Extension Personnel, Training Module

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How to cite this article:

Deepti Kothari and Kameswari, VLV. 2021. ICT Training Areas for the Extension Personnel: A Study of Uttarakhand State.Int.J.Curr.Microbiol.App.Sci. 10(1): 2731-2747. doi: https://doi.org/10.20546/ijcmas.2021.1001.318
Copyright: This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.

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