Student READY (Rural Entrepreneurship Awareness Development Yojana)

The Student READY (Rural Entrepreneurship Awareness Development Yojana) programme, implemented by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) under the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Government of India, aims to provide undergraduate students with rural entrepreneurship awareness, hands-on experience in real-life agricultural settings, and practical exposure to agriculture and allied sciences. The program will help in building confidence, skills, and acquiring Indigenous Technical Knowledge (ITK) of the locality and thereby preparing the pass-out for self-employment. It also aims to provide opportunities to acquire hands-on experience and entrepreneurial skills. To reorient graduates of agriculture and allied subjects for ensuring and assuring employability and developing entrepreneurs for emerging knowledge-intensive agriculture, it was felt necessary to introduce this program in all the AUs as an essential prerequisite for the award of degree to ensure hands-on experience and practical training. The Fifth Deans committee has given a detailed curriculum of the student READY program for all the disciplines in agriculture and allied sciences. The course curricula have been restructured to develop much-needed skills and entrepreneurial mindset among the graduates to take up self-employment, contribute to the enhanced rural livelihood and food security, sustainability of agriculture, and be propeller for agricultural transformation. The following components are proposed for carrying out one year Student READY program in all the Undergraduate (UG) disciplines 1. Experiential Learning on Business Model / Hands-on Training 1. Experiential Learning on Skill Development. 1. Rural Awareness Works Experience (RAWE). 1. Internship / In-Plant Training / Industrial attachment 1. Students Projects Student READY program is introduced in fourth year of undergraduate education in the following subjects: 1. Agriculture 1. Agriculture Engineering 1. Bio-Technology 1. Dairy Technology 1. Fisheries 1. Food Technology 1. Forestry 1. Horticulture 1. Home Science (now Community Science) 1. Sericulture Five components of student READY are: 1. Experiential Learning with business mode. 1. Hands-on training (HOT)/ Skill development training i.e. Experiential Learning without business mode. 1. Rural Awareness Work Experience (RAWE). 1. Internship/In-Plant Training/ Industrial attachment. 1. Students Projects. Experiential Learning with business mode Experiential Learning (EL) with business mode helps the student to develop competence, capability, capacity building, acquiring skills, expertise, and confidence to start their own enterprise and turn job creators instead of job seekers. This is a step forward for Earn while Learn concept. Experiential Learning is an important module for high quality professional competence and practical work experience in real life situation to Graduates. The module with entrepreneurial orientation of production and production to consumption pattern is expected to facilitate producing Job Providers rather than Job Seekers. The EL provides the students an excellent opportunity to develop analytical and entrepreneurial skills, and knowledge through meaningful hands on experience, confidence in their ability to design and execute project work. The main objectives of EL are: - To promote professional skills and knowledge through meaningful hands on experience. - To build confidence and to work in project mode. - To acquire enterprise management capabilities. Rural Agricultural Work Experience (RAWE) The Rural Agricultural Work Experience (RAWE) provides exposure to agricultural students to the natural setting of the village situations, work with the farm families, identify their problems and make use of various extension tools for transferring the latest agricultural technologies. The students also get opportunity to study the various on-going schemes related to agriculture and rural development and participate in their implementation. The students were given rigorous orientation and familiarization on various issues and problems expected on farmers’ field and hence gain competence and confidence for solving problems related to agriculture and allied sciences. It has been implemented in adopted villages under the supervision of scientists. Activities focused on intensive observations/ analysis of socio-economic and technological profile of the farm families in rural areas, participatory extension approach and acquaintance with farming situations, farm practices and interaction with progressive farmers. Soil testing has become the integral part of RAWE. This helps orient our agricultural graduates for participation in various rural developmental programme. The students also gained first hand information on industries during attachment with identified agro based industries. The stipend rates have been enhanced of ₹3000/ student/ month for a maximum of 6 months for the village/ rural training under student READY programme. In Plant Training (IPT)/ Industrial Attachment Technology and globalization are ushering an era of unprecedented change. The need and pressure for change and innovation is immense. To enrich the practical knowledge of the students, in-plant training is mandatory. In this training, students will have to study a problem in industrial perspective and submit the reports to the university. Such in-plant trainings will provide an industrial exposure to the students as well as to develop their career in the high tech industrial requirements. In-Plant training is meant to correlate theory and actual practices in the industries with the following objectives - To expose the students to Industrial environment, this cannot be simulated in the university. - To familiarize the students with various Materials, Machines, Processes, Products and their applications along with relevant aspects of shop management. - To make the students understand the psychology of the workers, and approach to problems along with the practices followed at factory - To make the students understand the scope, functions and job responsibility-ties in various departments of an organization. - Exposure to various aspects of entrepreneurship during the program period. Students Projects There is number of students interested in higher education and study abroad. Keeping in view their future requirement a component of Student Project is placed to understand and identify problems of his/ her interest and field, experimental set up, taking observation and writing and documentation in the form of thesis. Project work provides several opportunities to students to learn various aspects that cannot be taught in a class room or laboratory. In order to provide such opportunities to the graduates of agricultural science, Students Project is proposed as one of the components of the Student READY. It may be adopted based on the interest of student and expertise and facilities available with the College.The Students Project is proposed with the following objectives: - To impart analytical skills and capability to work independently. - To conceptualize, design and implement the proposed work plan. - Learn to work as a team- sharing work amongst a group, and learn leadership - Learn to solve a problem through all its stages by understanding and applying project management skills. - Learn to do various implementations, fabrication, testing and trouble shooting. - Learn communication report writing skills.