Effects of Training on Skill Development of Agricultural Extension Workers in Bangladesh: A Case Study in Four Upazilas (Sub-District) Under Kishoreganj District (Report) (Case Study‪)‬

INTRODUCTION The Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) is the largest government organization in Bangladesh, which provides unified agricultural extension services to farmers throughout the country. To provide high quality agricultural extension services, the DAE employs 12,640 agricultural extension workers (AEWs) at the field level (9). According to the DAE guidelines, each AEW has to provide agricultural extension services to around 1,200 farm households in his/her service upazila (sub-district) (8). Due to the extensive coverage of each AEW, the success in agricultural extension services largely depends on AEWs' extension skills. As a matter of fact, however, only 13.93% of the AEWs are credible as communicator of technical advice to farmers (14). Furthermore, 35% of farm information loss has been found to take place in the transit between AEWs and farmers although AEWs regularly attend off-the-job training (hereinafter Off-JT) (4). Due to lack of extension skills AEWs are not able to provide satisfactory extension services to farmers (1). Lack of AEWs' extension skills result in less adoption of improved rice variety by the farmers (11).