PJTASU to fine tune 'Student READY' programme

Hyderabad: Professor Jayashankar Telangana State Agricultural University (PJTSAU) is planning to bring more refinement in the implementation of the Student READY (Rural Entrepreneurship Awareness Development Yojana).

It may be mentioned here that the programme was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and it is going to be completed after six years of implementation by July 2021.

The PJTSAU has earned many firsts including the latest one being the first agriculture university to obtain a license from the Director-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to experiment with drone technologies in the agriculture sector.

After the implementation of the Student READY for the past five-and-a-half years, the university is planning to bring in its research outputs, technological interventions and best practices, innovation and incubation, a host of other areas to develop models.

In turn, the models would be adopted as part of the Ready, which gives the undergraduate agriculture students of the university, and its affiliated colleges an edge over their counterparts.

Further, it will also help the UG students of PJTSAU to kick start agriculture startups against the growing agriculture sector in Telangana.

According to the PJTSAU sources, the READY was meant to provide rural entrepreneurship awareness, practical experience in a real-life situation in rural agriculture and creating awareness to undergraduate students about practical agriculture and allied sciences.

That apart, it was meant to build confidence, skill and acquire Indigenous Technical Knowledge (ITK) of the locality and preparing the undergraduate students of agriculture for self-employment.

Opportunities to acquire hands-on experience and entrepreneurial skills, reorientation of students of agriculture and allied subjects for assured employability, developing them as entrepreneurs for emerging knowledge-intensive agriculture.

Accordingly, a year Student READY programme at the UG has been implemented covering the fields of agriculture, agricultural engineering, biotechnology, dairy technology, fisheries, food technology, forestry, home science, horticulture and sericulture spread over different semesters.

The restructured syllabi have Experiential Learning on Business Model (ELBM) and Hands-on Training (HoT), Experiential Learning on Skill Development (ELoSD), Rural Awareness Works Experience (RAWE). Besides, "internship, in-plant training, industrial attachment and finally student projects."

The PJTSAU, Vice-Chancellor Dr V Praveen Rao said the university is already implementing the Student Ready programme.

However, "We want to develop different models to fine-tune the implementation of it so that the students would benefit maximum when they pass out from the university and its colleges," he said.