Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday pitched for taking farm education to secondary school level, saying necessary reforms are made during this regard within the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
“There may be a got to take knowledge associated with agriculture and its application to high school level. Efforts are (on) to introduce the Agriculture subject at secondary school level in villages,” Modi said.
This will develop agriculture related understanding in students and enable them to offer information about agriculture, its modern farming techniques and marketing, to their relations , he said, adding this may promote agro-entrepreneurship within the country.
“For this, many reforms are made within the National Education Policy,” Modi said in an address after the virtual inauguration of school and administration buildings of Jhansi-based Rani Lakshmi Bai Central Agricultural University.
The NEP approved by the Union Cabinet last month replaces the 34-year-old National Policy on Education and is aimed toward paving the way for transformational reforms in class and better education systems to form India a worldwide knowledge superpower.
Asserting that steady efforts are being made to attach farming with modern technology, the Prime Minister noted that research institutions and agricultural universities have an important role to play.
Currently, there are three central agricultural universities within the country, compared to only one university six years ago. Besides this, three more national institutions — IARI Jharkhand, IARI Assam and Gandhi Institute for Integrated Farming in Motihari, Bihar — are being established.
He remarked that these institutions won’t only give new opportunities to students, but also will help in increasing their capacity, in providing technology benefits to the local farmers.
Modi further said within the last six years, the govt has endeavoured to determine a link between research and farming, and to supply scientific advice to farmers, at the bottom level in villages.
He sought the cooperation of the schools in developing the ecosystem to streamline the flow of data and expertise from campus to agriculture fields.
On use of recent technology in tackling farm sector challenges, Modi cited the recent locust attack and said the govt worked on war footing to regulate the spread of the attack and to scale back the damage.
He mentioned that dozens of control rooms were found out in several cities, arrangements were made to alert farmers beforehand , and drones were supplied for spraying pesticides. Besides, dozens of recent spray machines wont to kill locusts, were procured and provided to farmers.
Asserting that the farm sector features a major role to play in making India ‘Aatmanirbhar’ (self-reliant), Modi said, “When I mention aatmanirbhar in agriculture, it’s not limited to foodgrains but the self-reliance of a village/rural economy.”
