Training Needs of Agricultural Assistants Working in State Department of Agriculture

Training needs for Agricultural Assistants can be defined in terms of gap between job requirement and job performance. The present study deals with the training needs of Agricultural Assistants. Proportionate sampling technique was used to select 110 Agricultural Assistants from Rahuri, Shirarmpur and Nevasa tahsils of Ahmednagar district. The data was collected and analyzed in the form of Training Need Index (TNI) and accordingly ranks were allotted. The result of the finding reveals that Majority (73.64 per cent) of Agricultural Assistants require training to medium extent, followed by 14.55 per cent in high category and only 11.82 per cent in low category of training needs. Also the findings on training areas such as technical aspects, communication skill and human relation aspect, the highest training need index (TNI) observed were in the areas of communication skill and human relation aspect. These are Communication skill (90), Computer and internet (88.67), Administrative procedure (86.33), Extension teaching method and aids (85.33). The areas of technical aspects of the training are as follows, improved agricultural technology (86.67), preparation of crop production plan on the basis of agro-climatic conditions (84.24), soil and water conservation technology (80.91), respectively. It was observed that in-service training and total services experience were having positive and significant relationship with the training needs at 0.05 level of probability. While education and age having negative but significant relationship with training needs.