WHAT THE PROJECT DOES

Enhancing crop productivity – dealing with the dimension of availability - is one key to securing food security in Bangladesh. The productivity of the crop sector has increased significantly over time. The challenge, however, is to continue this momentum in the coming decades as population grows, and land is lost to other economic uses. Application of innovative demand-based technologies will help meet the challenge; the extension services are critical for the take up and adaptation of such technologies.

EXPECTED OUTCOMES

The outcome of the project – improved quality of agricultural diploma education - will be achieved through three outputs:

• Review of curriculum, and preparation of a skills development needs assessment,
• Development of a pre-service training module for Agriculture Training Institutes (ATIs) graduates, and
• Support to establish a model ATIs equipped for modern training.

The curriculum review will be of benefit to ATIs and the Bangladesh Technical Education Board (BTEB), although it is likely that core curriculum reform will take some time to be achieved. The skills development needs assessment will also be used to design the new pre-service training module, targeting candidates for recruitment by DAE, the National Agricultural Research System, NGOs and the private sector.  The model ATIs demonstrated will potentially be relevant to all of the 185 existing ATIs in Bangladesh, which train over 12,000 students annually, though the main commitment is to upgrade the 16 government-run institutes, which train approximately half of this total. 

The project contributes to the priority area 4 of the Bangladesh Country Programming Framework (CPF) 2014- 2018: "Further improve technology generation and adaptation through better producer-extension research linkages". 

• Outcome 4.1: Capacity of relevant institutions to deliver integrated extension services are strengthened.