Use of audio cassette technology in higher agricultural education: Constraints and suitable strategy for its effective utilization

The term “agricultural education” has been referred as a collective term for all education in agriculture, encompassing plant and animal sciences, engineering, economics and others. If, ACT is fully exploited for educational system in our country, it may fulfill all the challenges and demand of educational needs of ever growing population. It is fact that ACT may not be at par with the printed literature, but it may reduce the consumption of paper and pressure on our forest resources at considerable extent and hand in hand, it may give a new dimension in the educational system of India. To know the constraints and suitable strategy for effective utilization of ACT in agricultural higher education in Uttar Pradesh, a study was conducted during the year 2008–10. Altogether, 135 number of students studying at two agricultural colleges in the state of Uttar Pradesh were randomly selected and constituted the sample size for present study. Percentage, mean, standard deviation were reckoned with the collected data for drawing the results. It was found that 93.33 per cent teacher respondents reported the major constraint as to use ACT for practical and field work topics whereas 97.04 per cent student respondents reported 1^st rank to 20^th constraint — “Extra-financial obligation required for ACT”. On further analysis, it was found that 80.00 per cent of teachers had agreement with constraints number 7 and 8 where these two constraints got equal rank. Similarly, the state of rank of constraints number 3 and 17 and 6 and 12 were also equal reported by 40.00 per cent and 36.67 per cent teachers, respectively. In case of constraints experienced by the student respondents, the constraints number {VI -“It can't be introduced due to a lot of technical difficulties.” and VIII — “It will be difficult to get cassette of our own choice.”} had ranked 16^th by 43.70 per cent respondents. The rank correlation of the constraints was highly significant which refers that the level of perception regarding the constraints of ACT introduction were almost the same among the teachers and students.