Factors affecting the inclination of extension scholars to work in rural areas Kumar G. Naveen*, Chauhan N.B. Department of Agricultural Extension and Communication, B.A. College of Agriculture, Anand Agricultural University, Anand, Gujarat, India *Corresponding author email id: naveenkumargattupalli@gmail.com
Online published on 12 August, 2020. Abstract Agriculture, with its allied sectors, is the largest source of livelihoods in India. A total of 70.00% of its rural households still depend primarily on agriculture for their livelihood, with 82.00% of farmers being small and marginal. Agricultural extension is the application of scientific research and knowledge to agricultural practices through farmer education. Generally, agricultural extension can be defined as the ‘delivery of information inputs to farmers’. As most of the farmers living in rural areas, hence it is very essential for postgraduate scholar pursuing agricultural extension should have positive inclination to work in rural areas. To know the willingness of postgraduate scholars to work in rural areas, this study was conducted amongst the postgraduate scholars of agricultural extension in all the four SAUs of Gujarat, thus a total of 120 scholars were selected for this study. The study findings reveal that more than half (51.70%) of the postgraduate scholars pursuing post-graduation in agricultural extension and communication had average level of willingness to work in rural area, followed by 40.80%, 5.00% and 2.50% of them were with high level, very high level and poor level of willingness to work in rural areas. Out of total 30 years of total active working span of whole life, nearly half (46.53%), that is, 13.96 average years of period they had willingness to work in rural area. Out of all the variables, five variables namely fathers’ education, mothers’ education, job preference, achievement motivation and innovativeness had positive and significant relationship with willingness of postgraduate scholars to work in rural area. Step-wise regression analysis reveals that 79.50 of the variation in the willingness of postgraduate scholars to work in rural area was explained by four variables in which job preference was ranked first, followed by achievement motivation (Rank II), innovativeness (Rank III) and occupation of parents (Rank IV), respectively. Top Keywords Willingness, Inclination, Rural areas, Postgraduates, Agricultural extension. Top |