Sowing the seeds of educational change

As agriculture universities balance skill enhancement courses with traditional farming knowledge in line with NEP, hurdles like teachers' crunch, lack of funds and infrastructure persist

- Musab Qazi

Most agricultural universities and colleges have started incorporating the changes in the curricula and framework mandated by the National Education Policy and outlined in the Sixth Deans' Committee Report of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) for the fresh batch of aspirants joining the institutes in 2024-25. However, the pace and intensity of implementation varies with some universities and states going all in, while others chart a more deliberate approach.

While Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology, Kashmir (SKUAST-K), has become the 'first in the country' to adopt the Sixth Deans' Committee Report, Lovely Professional University (LPU) in Punjab's Phagwara has embraced practical skill enhancement courses from the first year.

Published in September last year, the Sixth Deans' Committee Report seeks to re-orient agriculture education at the undergraduate (UG) level towards NEP's objectives of flexibility, inclusivity, skill development, and the integration of technology.

The proposed reforms have led to new multidisciplinary programmes and courses in emerging areas of artificial intelligence, machine learning and data science. But at the same time, the universities are faced with the challenge of reviving the curriculum within their institutional constraints - inadequate infrastructure, trained teachers and funding being the foremost obstacles.

The 'first'

In its pursuit of making agriculture education more relevant, the SKUAST-K, a state university in Srinagar, has started five “market-driven” UG programmes this academic year, including BSc (Hons) in Economics with Data Science, BTech Biotechnology and BTech Biochemistry.