Student READY (Rural and Entrepreneurship Awareness Development Yojana)

About Student READY

The Student READY (Rural Entrepreneurship Awareness Development Yojana) programme aims to provide rural entrepreneurship awareness, practical experience in real-life situation in rural agriculture and creating awareness to undergraduate students about practical agriculture and allied sciences. The programme will help in building confidence, skill and acquire Indigenous Technical Knowledge (ITK) of the locality and thereby, preparing the pass out for self-employment. It also aims to provide opportunities to acquire hands-on-experience and entrepreneurial skills. To reorient graduates of agriculture and allied subjects for ensuring and assuring employability and develop entrepreneurs for emerging knowledge intensive agriculture, it was felt necessary to introduce this program in all the AU’s as an essential prerequisite for the award of degree to ensure hands on experience and practical training.

 In compliance with the student READY programme launched by the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India on 25th July 2015, the following components are proposed for conducting one year programme in all the UG disciplines.

• Experience Learning
• Rural Agriculture Work Experience
• In-plant Training/ Industrial Attachment
• Hands-on Training (HOT) / Skill Development Training
• Students Projects

All the above mentioned components are interactive and are conceptualized for building skills in project development and execution, decision-making, individual and team coordination, approach to problem solving, accounting, quality control, marketing and resolving conflicts, etc. with the end to end approach.

Student READY: Concept
The term READY refers to “Rural and Entrepreneurship Awareness Development Yojana” and the programme was conceptualized to reorient graduates of Agriculture and allied subjects for ensuring and assuring employability and develop entrepreneurs for emerging knowledge intensive agriculture. The proposal envisages the introduction of the programme in 151 | P a g e all the Agricultural Universities as an essential prerequisite for the award of degree to ensure hands on experience and practical training by adopting the following components depending on the requirement of respective discipline and local demands.

Student READY for Food Technology
Food Technology is one of the rising stream of agriculture where more emphasis is required to cater the need of entrepreneurs and industries around the nation and abroad. Considering the dynamism of Food Technology, following Student READY programmes are adopted.

• Experiential Learning Programme
• Research Projects
• Inplant Training

The details of Students READY programmes for Food Technology and their credit distribution is as follows:

STUDENT READY – INDUSTRIAL TOUR (I) and INDUSTRIAL TOUR (II)

 Industrial Tour should be compulsorily carried out by college for 1 to 2 weeks. The Industrial Tour should be planned by the Institute to make students acquaint with different sectors of Food Processing Industries (viz. Bakery, fruits and vegetables, snacks, meat processing, etc). The formal one days training should be arranged by college for students to teach them what to look for during the Industrial Tour.

In this revised syllabus, more emphasis on experiential learning has been laid. This is a major structural change undertaken for bringing professionalism and practical work experience in real life situations to graduates. These programmes will build confidence, facilitate skill development through experiential learning and facilitate in producing job providers rather than job seekers. Modification in course curriculum necessitates change in methodology in teaching and learning and development of facilities like food processing facilities, ELP unit, etc

These programmes will build confidence, facilitate skill development through experiential learning and facilitate in producing job providers rather than job seekers. Modification in course curriculum necessitates change in methodology in teaching and learning and development of facilities like food processing facilities, ELP unit, etc.

About Experiential Learning (EL)

The word ‘experiential’ essentially means that learning and development are achieved through personally determined experience and involvement, rather than on received teaching or training, typically in group, by observation, study of theory or hypothesis, bring in innovation or transfer of skills or knowledge. Experiential learning is a business curriculum-related endeavour which is interactive. EL is for building (or reinforcing) skills in project development and execution, decision-making, individual and team coordination, approach to problem solving, accounting, marketing and resolving conflicts, etc. The programme has end to end approach. Carefully calibrated activities help the participants to explore and discover their own potential and both activities and facilitation play a critical role in enhancing team performance.

Experiential Learning (EL) helps the student to develop competence, capability, capacity building, acquiring skills, expertise, and confidence to start their own enterprise and turn job creators instead of job seekers. This is a step forward for “Earn while Learn” concept. Experiential Learning is an important module for high quality professional competence and practical work experience in real life situation to Graduates. The module with entrepreneurial orientation of production and production to consumption pattern is expected to facilitates producing Job Providers rather than Job Seekers.

The main objectives of EL are:

• To build confidence and to work in project mode
• To acquire To promote professional skills and knowledge through meaningful hands on experience
• enterprise management capabilities
• Objectives
• To promote employment opportunities and entrepreneurship developmental skills in the field of agriculture science through integration of basic knowledge and conceptual aspects with experiential learning in specialized field of use of value added technology, devices & system.
• To generate trained skill man power for self-employment and entrepreneurship development.
• To earn through value addition technologies available locally through integration of integrated farming, food safety, agriculture market and good agriculture practices.
• To explore wider opportunities an integration of different agriculture on farm practices & devices for revenue generation. 
• To integrate education with enterprenenship for employment generation so that  Agriculture students may become job providers rather than job seekers.

Activities Envisaged

• To conduct hands-on training and entrepreneurship skills among outgoing UG students interested in the field of Agriculture & allied branches.
• To conduct special training in frontier areas of Agriculture for undergraduate degree students for establishing an enterprise and its management.
• To explore possibility of expanding scope/ federating students into business group and for industrial sectors.

Students will trained in:

• Pre-investment and pre-feasibility study

• New project identification

• Project feasibility and market study

• Identification of profitable industrial project opportunities

• Preparation of project profiles

• Preparation of techno-economics feasibility reports

 • Identification and selection of plant and machinery

• Manufacturing process and equipments required

• General guidance for establishment, repair and maintenance of renewable energy gudgets

 • Technical and commercial counselling

• Investment decision making

• Corporate diversification planning

• Forecasting financial aspects by estimating the cost of raw material, formulating the cash flow statement, projecting the balance sheet etc.

• Marketing and distribution of processed products.

• Federating into business group.

ELP Modules

1. Drying and Dehydrations of fruits and vegetables

 2. Fruits and Vegetable Products

3. Beverages and other Innovative Products

4. Spice Products

5. Postharvest management and marketing of Fresh Fruits and Vegetables

 6. Egg, Poultry and Meat Processing

7. Bakery Products

8. Grain based Products (Cereal, Legumes/pulses and oilseeds)

 9. Chocolate, Confectionary and Snack Products

10. Traditional, Heritage Food Products

11. Milk and Milk products

12. Processing of Fish and Fish Products

13. Functional Foods and Nutraceuticals