Context: The first National Agricultural Education Policy is set to bring academic credit banks and degree programmes with multiple entry and exit options to the 74 universities focussed on crop sciences, fisheries, veterinary and dairy training and research.
National Agricultural Education Policy

• A six-member committee of Vice-Chancellors has been asked to submit a draft policy document to the Agriculture Ministry, and the new policy based on the recommendations is set to usher in some changes to the academic lives of more than 45,000 students that are admitted into agricultural universities every year.

The policy is set to bring

• Academic credit banks.
• Degree programmes with multiple entry and exit options to the 74 universities focussed on crop sciences, fisheries, veterinary and dairy training and research.
• The new policy is drafted to usher in some changes to the academic life of students of agricultural universities in line with the National Education Policy.

Connection with National Education Policy (NEP)

• In many ways, agricultural education is ahead of its time, and already aligned with the NEP.
• The NEP wants a shift to four-year undergraduate degrees, and all our agricultural degrees are already four-year programmes.
• Similarly, the NEP mentions experiential education, and we have already mandated that since 2016.

Student READY

• The Student READY (Rural Entrepreneurship Awareness Development Yojana) programme requires all students to undertake a six-month internship, usually in their fourth year, to gain hands-on training, rural awareness, industry experience, research expertise and entrepreneurship skills.

Challenges

• One major challenge is how to ensure that this experiential learning is made available to all students if we implement the multiple entry-exit system.
• Another major challenge for agricultural universities could be the push for multi-disciplinarity.