Professionals in practice: Competence Analysis: The extension experts : Unpacking professional competence

Agricultural extension professionals are key assets in extension services because they play catalytic roles in agricultural development. To prepare extension professionals to work in changing environments, it is essential to identify the core competencies that will allow them to do their jobs well. Extension professional to be more knowledgeable, skillful and able, not only in technical subject matter but also in process skills. With this consideration, an attempt has been made in the present investigation to know the professional competency of the extension personnel working in KVKs, development departments. Total sample size for the study was 285. Nine components were selected in order to measure the competence of extension personnel. Further, on the basis of data on different components, overall professional competence index was calculated for each respondent and based on their average composite index score, they were grouped arbitrarily into five categories as very low, low, medium, high and very high competence.