Stakeholders’ Participation in Assessing Educational Needs of Agricultural Students Leading to the Formulation of Appropriate Course

Stakeholders are persons, groups or institutions having interests in a project or programme. Agriculture education is a multi-stakeholder process starting from government departments, banks, national and multinational companies, academic institutions, non-governmental organizations, etc. In order to ensure the participation of agricultural graduates in these diverse fields, the educational policymakers are interested in refining the course based on the interest of the serving organizations. A relatively lower number of attempts has been made to incorporate the views of the stakeholders in shaping the course. The current paper is an attempt to assist the stakeholders get competent employees to cater the needs of the employees and serve the growing needs of the organization. The study will further help to save the resources and time towards orienting the students readying for a career in the field. The study was conducted in Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya (BCKV), Nadia, West Bengal to assess the perception of the s takeholders about the strength, competence and future opportunities of undergraduate students. The data collection was performed using a formal questionnaire to elicit responses from various stakeholders in the process. The inputs could act as a precursor to refine the course content and sub content with respect to the knowledge and skill component of the syllabus. This exercise is to be repeated at regular intervals for updating the courses.