بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

1. بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم COMPARATIVE EXTENSION

2. Introduction • The idea and origin of extension • Development: socialization, (natural and social environment) = matching is the ultimate objective. • Knowledge is a major driving force in this respect. • Means of acquiring knowledge: learning and education.

3. Means of acquiring knowledge • Learning processes necessarily fall into one of the following three categories: • First; Random learning which includes non-structured educational activities. These could be further categorized into: • Incidental education, when neither the source nor the receiver has made a conscious attempt to promote learning i.e. no learning situation being set up purposefully.

4. Means of acquiring knowledge • Informal education, when either the learner or the source has the conscious intention of promoting learning, but not both. • Although this type of learning is unorganized, unsystematic and even unintentional at times, yet it accounts for the great bulk of any person's total lifetime learning.

5. Means of acquiring knowledge • However when dealing with random learning it is important to realize that what an individual learns is limited to whatever his personal environment happens to offer.

6. Means of acquiring knowledge • Second; Non-formal education, which encompasses all forms of learning situations where both source and receiver consciously promote learning outside the framework of the formal school systems. Such as: extension, adult literacy programmes and occupational skill training given outside the formal system.

7. Means of acquiring knowledge • Third; Formal education, which differs from the non-formal one in that it is carried out in institutions or schools by permanently employed teachers within the framework of a fixed curriculum.

8. Means of acquiring knowledge • However, the borderline between formal and non-formal education is not always clear-cut, as both types are normally organized by various societies to augment and improve the random learning processes, or to promote certain valued types of learning that individuals cannot as readily or quickly acquire through exposure to the environment.

9. Extension as a kind of intervention • Extension is defined as "A professional communication intervention deployed by an institution to induce change in voluntary behaviours with a presumed public or collective utility".

10. Intervention • "A systematic effort to strategically apply resources to manipulate seemingly causal elements in an ongoing social process, so as to permanently reorient that process in directions deemed desirable by the intervening party”.

11. Kinds of extension • Informative extension: instrument for helping people make well-considered choices among alternatives. "The emphasis is on supporting the individual to make optimal decisions with respect to achieving his/her own goals".

12. Kinds of extension • Emancipatory extension: instrument of emancipation and upliftment of the poor, a "pedagogy of the oppressed", and for achieving societal objectives for correcting structural problems.

13. Kinds of extension • Human resource development or formative extension: emphasis is on developing the human being, forming or enhancing his/her capacities to make decisions, to learn, to manage, to communicate with others, to analyze the environment, to be a leader, to stand up to oppression, to organise, and so forth.

14. Kinds of extension • Persuasive extension: policy instrument for achieving societal objectives or collective utilities. Intended change is in the interest of society as a whole or future generations, but not necessarily in the short-term of the individuals.

15. The utility and role of extension • Evidences show that it is not always the case that farmers only need information. Experiences indicate that actually they might lack other inputs or opportunities to utilize the information package. • Actually, for voluntary change in behaviour to take place, one must know how to, one must want to, and one must have the capacity to change. Extension can affect knowledge and motivation to a much greater extent than it affects capacity.

16. The utility and role of extension • Therefore, extension is often used in combination with other policy instruments to ensure impact. • What farmers need is less a standard package of practices and more a basket of choices; the role of extension is less to transfer technology and more to help farmers adapt; the local experts are not so much researchers as farmers themselves. Farmers are professional specialists in survival, but their skills and knowledge have yet to be fully recognized.

17. The utility and role of extension • Taking this into consideration, the range of actions to be carried out by extension staff might include: • Resource management actions, which could be used when existing management practices shows that it is necessary to introduce new practices.

18. The utility and role of extension • Provision of implementation tools, meaning the provision of certain incentives, technical support and/or extension to stimulate the adoption of better adapted forms of management. • Arrangement of a proper institutional and organizational structure within which implementation proceeds.

19. Extension strategies and approaches • One can differentiate between three strategies: • `Do To', which asks the question: How do I get them where I want them? • `Do For', which asks the question: How do I develop an offering which my target client want? • `Do With', which asks the question: How do I help people to achieve what they themselves want to achieve?

20. Agricultural extension: a system’s perspective • A system is defined as: "a set of elements which interact dynamically and are organized to achieve a goal". • Any system constitutes the following: • Component; primary element composing the system. • Link; liaison (rapport, relation interaction, reaction) between two components.

21. Agricultural extension: a system’s perspective • Boundary; localization of all components and links, which can be directly influenced or controlled during the design of the system.

22. Agricultural extension: a system’s perspective • Environment; encompasses all of the factors which influence the performance of the system but which remain uncontrollable. • Interface; rendezvous shared by two systems, for example, where the outputs of one are the inputs of the other.

23. Agricultural extension: a system’s perspective • The notion of a system is a useful framework for considering analysis and evaluation of most forms of human actions. • It provides a basis for proposing alteration to existing patterns of activities.

24. Agricultural extension: a system’s perspective • It is a conceptual construct, a basis for organizing thought about a specified field of activity. • To use a system perspective is to apply a holistic approach to a relevant and defined whole, and its activity.

25. Agricultural extension: a system’s perspective • A system may be conceived as being composed of hierarchical series of smaller systems, which may be referred to as sub-systems of the bigger system(s). Hence, agricultural extension may be regarded as a sub-system within the wider system of rural development knowledge and information system.

26. Exogenous and Endogenous Constraints • Any system is influenced by exogenous and endogenous constraints. • Exogenous factors are those occurring at levels higher than that of the system.

27. Exogenous and Endogenous Constraints • Endogenous factors are those set by subsystems within the system or by lower level systems. • The distinction between exogenous and endogenous factors is essential in understanding systems performance.

28. Knowledge and Information System (KIS) • " ...the persons, networks and institutions, and the interfaces and linkages between them, which engage in, or manage, the generation, transformation, transmission, storage, retrieval, integration, diffusion and utilization of knowledge and information, and which potentially work synergically to improve the goodness of fit between knowledge and environment, and the technology used, in a specific domain of human activity".

29. AKIS Performance • Agricultural Knowledge and Information Systems (AKIS) must be examined at national level against the backdrop of: • The policy environment, which formulates the laws and incentives. • Structural conditions, such as markets, inputs, the resource base, infra-structure and the structure of farming.

30. AKIS Performance • The political and bureaucratic structure through which various interest groups influence the system. • The external sector, comprising donor agencies, international agricultural research centres and/or commercial firms.

31. optimal KIS performance • The following criteria were identified as requirements for optimal KIS performance: • Balance between the intervention power of specialized institutions and the countervailing power of clients. • Affirmative action, so that knowledge will not accumulate where there is most of it already. This can be through;

32. optimal KIS performance • targeting of opportunities on the knowledge, goals and capacities of forgotten categories and • their deliberate empowerment and enhancement of their capacity to innovate. • Responsiveness to diversity. • Synergy between the tasks of its constituent actors.

33. optimal KIS performance • Mobilization and play off of forces which can overcome the incentives for default and entropy. • A conducive KIS environment.

34. Extension Systems • The following are some definitions relevant to the concept of extension systems: • Extension system: refers to an extension organization, such as a Ministry of Agriculture extension system, department of agricultural extension, a college or university-based extension system, or a parstatal-based extension system.

35. Extension Systems • Extension strategy: is a chosen course of action such as multi-step information flow strategy or multi-media strategy. • Extension methods: refers to the educational techniques used by the extension system, particularly by field staff in communicating with farmers. • An extension approach: is the style of action within a system.

36. Extension Systems • The approach embodies the philosophy of the extension system. However, it is not merely one of the components of the system. It is more like a doctrine of the system, which informs, stimulates, and guides such aspects of the system as its structure and programme. Operationally, an extension approach influences the choice of the target audience and their participation, the resource requirements and allocation, the methodologies employed, and for the monitoring and evaluation of activities and extension associated development impact.

37. Alternative Systems in Extension • Efforts made to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of agricultural extension systems, led to the conception of new strategies and approaches to overcome the constraints of general agricultural extension of the 1950s.

38. Alternative Systems in Extension • At that time, research results needed to improve agriculture proved to be an illusion. • Needed inputs, access to markets and other incentives necessary to motivate the application of most extension recommendations had been overlooked. • Training, employing and supporting of staff for countrywide operation posed difficult financial and logistical problems.

39. Alternative Systems in Extension • The search for alternative and complementary approaches in support for the general agricultural extension system began in 1960s and continues today. • Systems of integrated agricultural development (IAD) and integrated rural development (IRD) were introduced.

40. Alternative Systems in Extension • However, the administrative difficulties of coordinating and ensuring technical support have overburdened the non-specialized field staff. • Also in both approaches, national replication and local continuation were difficult without external funding.

41. Alternative Systems in Extension • The quality and frequency of in-service training of staff and the supervisory, subject-matter-specialists, and logistical support were inadequate. Systematic linkage between research scientists, extension staffs, and farmers had not been achieved. • In mid 1970s, it was apparent that the general agricultural extension approach could not adequately transfer new technologies.

42. Alternative Systems in Extension • As a means of addressing these problems, the Word Bank introduced the Training and Visit T&V approach.

43. Alternative Systems in Extension • Following the World Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (WCARRD) in 1979, ways were sought to secure the involvement and active participation of intended beneficiaries in identifying problems, setting goals, and in preparing and implementing extension programmes. What came and introduced was what is known as the participatory approaches, employed by extension systems to secure the clientele interests.

44. Alternative Systems in Extension • So, extension activities were conducted by farmers associations, cooperatives, rural organizations, or other informal groupings of men, women organized by extension. • The potential for educational and human resource development of this approach was emphasized as essential in assisting the poorly educated rural majority.

45. Identification of extension approaches • The alternatives to organizing extension demand choices on various levels: • Public versus private • Government versus non-government • Top-down (bureaucratic) versus bottom-up (participatory) • Profit versus nonprofit

46. Identification of extension approaches • Free versus cost-recovery • General versus sector • Multipurpose versus single purpose • Technology driven versus need oriented

47. Characteristics of Extension approach • The following seven dimensions can characterize each approach: • The dominant identified problems to which the approach is to be applied as a strategic solution i.e. the basic assumptions. • The purposes it is designed to achieve.

48. Characteristics of Extension approach • The way in which the control of programme planning is carried on, and the relation of those who control programme planning to those who are the main target for the programme. • The nature of the field personnel including such aspects as their density in relation to clientele, levels of training, reward system, origin, gender, and transfers.

49. Characteristics of Extension approach • The resources required, and various cost factors. • The typical implementation techniques used. • How it measures its success.

50. Alternative ways of organizing extension • In fact, different forms of organizing extension are per se neither "good" nor "bad." Rather, extension services must be judged against their proper goals.