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FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK 
My dear readers of Journal of Extension Education,

 The general complaint which we keep hearing is that the performance of 
public extension services in developing countries such as India, has not been 
satisfactory. Demand-driven public extension services are hardly in practice 
today. They have difficulty in facing the growing challenges of the agricultural 
sector such as globalization-induced competitiveness and ecological threats. 
Private extension, earlier thought of as a viable alternative to public extension has 
not been nuch promising either. Major reforms in the public extension system 
are therefore essential for enhancing its effectiveness. In one of its Policy briefs, 
the NCAP (ICAR-National Institute of Agricultural Economics and Policy Research) 
had suggested that to be effective and to remain relevant in the years to come, the 
public extension agencies in India should initiate the following structural reforms 
in the organization.

• Strengthen understanding on matters with respect to technology, markets, 
prices, demand and policies by hiring or recruiting professionals in these 
important areas. 

• Recruit better qualified staff - Among the 1,10,000-odd agricultural extension 
staff in the states, only around 20 percent are agricultural graduates.

• Improve social science skills of extension personnel with respect to need 
assessment, group formation, negotiation, conflict resolution, mobilization, 
management of CPRs, use of IT, data collection, analysis and documentation 

• Increase the allocation for operational expenditure:  Allocation of operating 
expenses in State Departments of Agriculture in the country is around 15% 
whereas a fully functional extension system should have 30-35% of its total 
expenses as operational expenses.

• Decentralize the operations of the department and provide flexibility to field 
level officers to decide appropriate extension programmes. 

• Improve the capabilities of extension managers to operate effectively in the 
pluralistic extension environment. 

 As public-sector extension system  continues to be the predominant 
extension provider in the country, it needs to refine its roles in line with the reforms 
mentioned above. 

 I am happy to inform that JEE is now indexed/listed in Google Scholar, 
J-Gate, CIARD-RING of GFAR and MIAR (Information Matrix for analysis of 
Journals). The journal is under review in several other agencies. This issue of 
JEE has an interesting mix of topics ranging from learning styles of agricultural 
students to work participation of tribals to farmer interest groups. Do give your 
feedback to editorextension@gmail.com.

Chief EditorJEE 28(4)