Principles and Techniques of Veterinary and AH Extension

MEANING OF EXTENSION

• The term extension education was first used by Cambridge University in 1873, with an objective to take educational advantages of the university to ordinary people. After being influenced by this, the Land Grant Colleges in the United States of America formally established the Agricultural Extension work by integrating different activities of the colleges. From then it was spread to other parts of the world as well as to India.The concept of extension was then applied in the field of home science and popularly called as home economics in USA. Similarly, the concept of extension was also applied to various fields depending upon the sector which is being addressed. This has lead to the development of disciplines like agriculture extension, livestock extension, home science extension and fisheries extension.
• The word extension is derived from the Latin roots ‘ex’ meaning ‘out’ and ‘tensio’ meaning ‘stretching’. Extension education is stretching out to the people who are beyond the limits of educational institutions. Most definitions refer to extension education as an out of school education. The National Commission on Agriculture (1976)refers to extension as an out of school education and services for the members of the farm family and others directly or indirectly engaged in farm production, to enable them to adopt improved practices in production,management, conservation and marketing. Several authors defined extension in various ways emphasizing the importance of one or the other aspect of extension.
• Extension was defined by Maunder(1982) as the extending of or a service or system which extends the educational advantages of an institution to persons unable to avail themselves of them in a normal manner. Extension involves the conscious use of communication of information to help people form sound opinions and make good decisions ( van den Ban, 1996 ).
• Extension is also defined as a professional communication intervention deployed by an institution to induce change in voluntary behaviour with a presumed public or collective activity(Roling, 1988). These definitions indicate that
• Extension is for extending educational advantages
• Extension is for forming sound opinions to make good decisions
• Extension is for inducing changes in voluntary behavior.
• The main objective of all extension work is to teach people living especially in rural areas how to raise their standard of living, by their own efforts using their own resources of man power and materials with the minimum assistance from Government (Paul Leagans, 1960). The broader function of extension work is to help people to solve their own problems through the application of scientific knowledge is now generally accepted. Extension is largely educational in nature and approach. Hence, the words “extension” and“extension education” are used interchangeably.