This contribution aims at informing readers about a current education and training design approach which is based on theory building and practical experience. It is about the development of comprehensive competence-based education, which is different from earlier attempts to develop competence-based education. In many education development…

Purpose: Public-funded fisheries extension services have been blamed as poor and responsible for the slow pace of aquaculture development in India. The present investigation aimed to find concrete interventions to streamline the extension service by understanding the research-extension-farmer linkage indirectly in terms of information sources of…

Purpose: The fields of competence development and capacity development remain isolated in the scholarship of learning and innovation despite the contemporary focus on innovation systems thinking in agricultural and rural development. This article aims to address whether and how crossing the conventional boundaries of these two fields provide new…

Purpose: The central aim of this study was to determine the perception of aquaculture educational provisions in the state of Victoria, and whether they are sufficient to ultimately support further growth of the industry. Design/methodology/approach: Questionnaires were formulated and distributed to participants in a variety of ways, including via…

Purpose: Training transfer has been examined for formal industrial and service organizations in developed countries but rarely for rural organizations in sub-Saharan Africa. This study sought to identify transfer system factors that best explain the transfer of governance-facilitation skills provided to leaders of farmers' marketing organizations…

Purpose: The study investigated to what extent local farmers' organisations are spaces where farmers discuss, learn and innovate. Design/methodology/approach: Two milk collection cooperatives in Morocco were studied. The study analysed the discussion networks, their impacts on farmers' knowledge and innovation, and the performance of collective…

Purpose: This article examines and evaluates the potential contributions from action learning and action research with stakeholders to higher education in agriculture and food systems. Design/Methodology/Approach: The research is based on our experiences over the past two decades of running PhD courses and an MSc degree programme in Agroecology in…

Purpose: Participatory extension, specifically farm discussion groups, has become a very popular form of agricultural extension in Ireland. The purpose of this article is to assess its effectiveness in promoting the adoption of new technologies and improving farm profit. Design/Methodology/Approach: Following a review of the background and theory…

Purpose: This article outlines the development of extension as a discipline in Australia, its organization, and the ideological changes that have occurred from the second half of the nineteenth century through to the present. Design/Methodology/Approach: It considers the evolution of extension across the different states of Australia from a…

Purpose: The following study was carried out to evaluate the socio-economic factors influencing access to Integrated Soil Fertility Management (ISFM) information and knowledge among farmers in western Kenya, and subsequent ISFM uptake with a view to assessing communication gaps. Design/Methodology/Approach: Structured questionnaires were…

Purpose: To examine the status and priorities for agricultural information generation, dissemination and utilization in the context of agricultural innovation systems in southeast Uganda. Design/Methodology/Approach: Group discussions were conducted with six communities in Kamuli district, southeast Uganda. The focus was on information sources and…

This article follows the author's previous piece on practical guidelines for the development of comprehensive competence-based education and training (Mulder, 2012). It is about the questions that have been and are still frequently asked in presentations, workshops and classes about the introduction of competence-based education. Here, the author…

Purpose: Many countries receive international support to strengthen professional capacity. The effect of these professional development activities (PDAs), however, is often negligible. This article provides useful insights on how international aid organizations could improve their PDAs, by describing an intervention developed and applied in…

Purpose: This article reviews the experience of ICT applications as a tool for putting research derived knowledge into use for innovation in South Asia. Design/methodology/approach: The article uses the contemporary understanding of communication and innovation in reviewing the experience of ICTs in putting new knowledge into use in South Asia.…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify and rank the SWOT issues of India's veterinary and animal science education. Design: The data were collected at the Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI) from 168 post-graduate students. The two surveys generated 72% (N = 121) and 68% (N = 114) response rates, respectively. In the first…