Fundamentals of Extension Education (1+1)

Why study Extension

• To be successful, an extension worker should know not merely ‘what’ to teach but ‘how’ to teach people. In other words, it is not enough if he is equipped with the technical knowledge in subject matter field, he should have the ability to successfully communicate his ideas to the people, taking the personnel, social and situational factors into consideration.

  The following quotation aptly illustrates the need to study the subject extension.
• The captain of a ship has to know not only his ship and the destination he wants to reach. He must also understand ocean currents and tides and the mind systems of the world. All of these are powerful forces which can help him. The extension worker needs to understand not only his own programmes and objectives but also the currents of thoughts in the minds of the people with whom he lives and works. He needs to understand the motives of men; why certain people take to new ideas more rapidly than others, why certain people seek to take the lead and why certain others hesitate. Light is thrown on many such questions by the knowledge accumulated by the social sciences.
• Knowing that much has been discovered about, currents and winds, no captain will venture out neither without providing himself with that knowledge nor without continuously studying. Similarly, the extension worker, aware of how much is and how very much more is yet to be known about the behavior of people will see that this kind of knowledge is essential to him. He will know that there are dependable currents in village life which can carry people ahead rapidly and he can look for them, confident that they can be found. He will recognise that some of his obstacles are like hidden rocks which he had better to avoid rather than try to drive the ship of his programme straight across them
• This kind of knowledge is the field of study of psychology, anthropology and based on them of educational theory, unfortunately, our scientific knowledge of people in India is negligible compared with our scientific knowledge of plants, animals and soils. But what is important to extension is should study it constantly and we should urge social scientists to work much faster in order to meet the needs of this country in their field of study.
• Various scientists have defined the term “Extension” according to their interest, experience and training. The term was first used in a customary in USA. Afterwards it was used by many countries. Extension education is used in various fields, such as Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, Dairy, Veterinary, Health, Home Science, Industry, Cooperative and Forestry. Therefore, it is necessary to understand basic concept of Extension Education for those who are associated with it in some way or the other. To fully understand the nature of extension education, it is important to study various definitions given by different scholars.

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