Books by Nav Ghimire

Extension is a teaching learning process. The educational processes are used in Extension to plan, implement, deliver, and evaluate the educational programs and meet the needs of people. This book presents a study conducted in the United States to identify the importance of 42 professional competencies categorized under the four educational process areas. Randomly selected, 441 Extension Educators participated in the study through an online survey. Results suggest that participantsreported the majority of the competencies to behighly important for their professional developmentand the best time to learn many competencies wasthrough on-the-job experience. A professionalcompetency development model was derived from thestudy. This model could be a useful tool for (1) designing flexible staff development programsthrough graduate education, in-service programs, and on-the-job training, and (2) developing newpolicies for employee selection, training,professional development, and performanceappraisal. Findings of the study have implications in a variety of international Extension settings for professional development of extension agents.

Extension agencies in many countries have organized farmers into groups to minimize cost and time for technology transfer. In this context, farmer participation becomes important to plan and implement Extension education programs. This book presents a study conducted in Nepal that explored government aims of farmer participation and experiences of farmers in an agricultural development program that claims to be based on the participatory principles. Data were collected from secondary sources and focus group discussions and interviews with farmers, policy makers, government and agency staff. The findings show wide discrepancies between the various sources of information: i.e., (1) the aims of farmer participation stated in national policy documents, (2) the interpretations in government and program documents, (3) the views on participation expressed by government and program staff in interviews, (4) participation as experienced by farmers in a case study, and (5) participation as desired by non-participants of the program. Findings have implications for community development work both in non-industrialized and industrialized countries of the world.