Module 1: Introduction to Extension Education and Community Development

Lesson 1: Definition, concepts, principles, and philosophies of extension education and

community development
Concept of Extension
The basic concept of Extension is Education, which is defined as the production of
desirable changes in human behaviour. The production of desirable changes in human being is
possible by changing his/her knowledge, understanding, skill and attitude about any activity.
Through extension education either all, or one or more than one of the above is attempted to
achieve so that so that a farmer may improve his/her standard of living. Extension is not only
attempting to change the behaviour and ensuring adoption of a particular practice but also aims
at changing the outlook of the farmer so that they will be receptive to the new ideas and
continuously seek means to improve his quality of life. Extension is essentially the means by
which new knowledge and ideas are introduced into rural areas in order to bring about change
and improve the lives of farmers and their families.

Basic Elements of Behavior

1. Knowledge and Understanding

2. Skill
3. Attitude

Need for Extension

The rural people are to be educated to adopt improved technologies which are being developed
in the research stations for their benefits. However, this education process is not simple. The
institutions, organisations and extension workers involved in this process should understand the
principle and philosophy of adult education. According to Supe( 1987), the researchers neither
have time nor they equipped for the job of persuading the villagers to adopt scientific methods,
and to ascertain from them the rural problems. Similarly, it is difficult for the farmers to always
visit the research stations and obtain firsthand information. Thus, there is a need for an agency
to interpret the findings of research to the farmers and to carry the problems of the farmers to
research stations for solution. This gap is filled by the extension agency.

Objectives of Extension
The literal meaning of the term, objectives, is the expressions of the ends towards which our
efforts are directed. In other words, an objective means a direction of movement. The
fundamental objective of extension is the development of people by means of education. More
specifically stated, the following are general objectives of extension.

1. To assist people to discover and analyze their problems, identify the felt needs and
taking appropriate decision.
2. Educating people to be able to make similar decisions in future under similar situation.
3. To develop leadership among people and help them in organizing groups to solve
their problems.
 4. To disseminate information based on research work and /or practical experiences in
such a manner that the people would accept it and put it in to actual practices.
5. To facilitate the process of farmers’ institutions development in the rural areas.
6. To keep research stations informed about the problems of the farmers.
7. Stimulating desirable developments within the framework of the national, economic
8. and social policies involving all the sub sectors of development as a whole.

Functions of Extension

The main function of extension is to bring about desirable changes in the human behavior.
Changes may be brought about in their knowledge, skill and attitude towards ideas, innovations,
practices, etc. The extension system includes all intuitions like public, private, and non-
government development institutions that educate people for their betterment. Extension
performs set of functions that induce voluntary change among people for development.

Aset of functions of extension includes:

1. transferring technology for sustainable development

2. transferring management capacity to mobilize and organize developmental activities by
all communities
3. capacity building of all stakeholders in the developmental process on various aspects
like planning, evaluation and implementation of programs.

Basic Elements of Extension

According to [Link] (1961), there are three basic elements in extension for rural
development which the extension educator must deal with as they are key to his success.
These elements are:

1. A View of Man Himself: An Extension educator should view a man as:

a) Individual human personality possessing many inherited traits, tendencies and

capacities that create forces which shape what they think, what they do and how they do
it.
b) Possessing extensive mental power to analyze, learn, think, reason, understand,
remember, forget, reject, decide, judge, and to do other things.
c) Possessing emotional powers which includes
1. capacity to feel various emotions like love, hate, confidence, fear, sadness,
happiness, etc.
2. desire to resists many acts and conditions like innovation, imposition, poverty,
strangeness, etc.
3. desire to improve many things like his knowledge and skills level, food, clothing,
housing, agriculture production, independence, leadership, etc.
4. Possessing great potential physical skill to improve his condition.
2. Man’s Environment: Man is surrounded by other human beings, physical items, social and
cultural norms and economic conditions. Environmental forces exert continuous pressure on
 him and shape his personality accordingly. Some of the major environmental/external forces
facing a typical farmer in an Indian village are: Low agricultural production, Poor housing, and
other amenities, Low per capita income, Poor health, Under- employment, Poor educational
opportunities, Poor credit system, Poor marketing infrastructure, Unproductive and
uneconomical agricultural implements.
3. Man-created Devices to Serve Man: In human civilization, man has created various
institutions and forces, and developed certain mechanisms to promote his welfare. Man has
been always attempting through various institutions-educational, technological, physical,
economic, social, administrative, religious, etc- created by him to minimize the gap between
what ought to be and what is in human being. After independence, India has developed
various man-created devices to improve the socio-economic condition of the farmers, and few
of them are:
a. Trained personnel
b. Scientific knowledge
c. Improved production tools
d. Improved production materials and methods
e. Expanded communication media
f. Policy guidelines
g. Government aid in money and inputs
h. Provision of credits
i. Freedom and encouragement
j. Promotion of cooperatives, Self Help Groups, etc.

These three elements lie at the use of extension educator for rural development. The third
element, man-created devices are designed to help people to make desirable adjustment
between the elements of man and his environment. The methods by which the adjustment is to
be made in a free society are education. Only the human element is controlling the progress
today. Therefore, the key to rural development lies in the Mind, Heart and Hands of the people
and those of their professional leaders (Mathialagan, 2007)

Scope of Extension
Kelsey and Hearne (1967) gave emphasis on nine areas, which indicate the scope of extension,
these are;

1. Efficiency in agricultural and allied production

2. Efficiency in marketing, distribution and utilization
3. Conservation, development and use of natural resources
4. Management on the farm and in home.
5. Family living
6. Youth development
7. Leadership development
8. Community development and rural area development
9. Public affairs
Extension is an integral part of technology transfer or teaching in agriculture, animal husbandry,
rural development, social works, etc. The principle, philosophy and methodologies of extension
are now being widely used in other fields like health, nutrition, family planning, natural resource
management, disaster preparedness, etc. Its application has gained relevance also in the urban
areas where teaching, training, motivation and creation of awareness of is required for
implementation of various programmes. In view of these, the scope of the extension is very
broad and covers many aspects of rural development.

Components of Extension

In the context of rural development, extension has the following three broad components:

1. Extension Education - Extension education is basically a need based, people’s

participation based, local resource based and problem-solution based approach, and it is
very much interrelated with teaching, extension and research. Here, extension efforts
are related to research both in terms of its products, viz. new technologies and process.
The extension education role is performed by higher learning institutions, viz. research
institutes, universities, and apex level training and extension organizations.

2. Extension Services - Extension services are the mission and mandate of the various
development departments like agriculture, animal husbandry, horticulture, watershed,
rural development, health, industry, education, etc. in all the states of the country. It is a
programme for development employing the extension process as a means for
implementation. Extension service is location specific, input intensive service oriented,
and field level professional activities with two objectives (i) transferring new technologies
or innovations, and advising the people on improved methods; and (ii) communicating
development constraints to research institutes / development organization / policy
makers, as feedback for development of solutions to the problems. Thus, extension
service serves as a link between researchers, development workers, and people.
Extension service also works hand-in-hand with other development departments, credit
institutions, NGOs, international agencies, civil society, etc. to multiply their efforts and
effects.

3. Extension Work
Extension work is to assist people to improve their socio-economic condition through
educational and service approach. It helps people to take decision in right direction.
Through extension work, people are stimulated to make changes that result in more
efficient production and marketing, conservation of natural resources, improved
livelihood security, health, and more satisfying family and community life. Extension work
is location specific and usually susceptible to outside criticism. Extension work is actually
to help people to help themselves by taking care of their wellbeing. It is not always doing
for them. Extension work ensures the participation of people in developmental works and
there after owning the programmes. This is not a work of only providing service rather a
work of educating the people to take control of their development. That is way it is an
educational process giving more emphasis on developing the capacity of the people
rather than only providing services of various kind.