Page 113 - Contributed Paper Session (CPS) - Volume 1

CPS1178 D. S. Hooda et al.
At present there are 28 State Agricultural Universities and a Central
Agricultural University for the north east region.
In addition to SAU’s we have four institutes under ICAR system viz., Indian
Agricultrual Research Institutes (IARI), New Delhi, Indian Veterinary Research
Institutes (IVRI), Izatnagar, National Dairy Research Institutes (NDRI), Karnal
and Central Institute of Fishery Education (CIFE), Mumbai which enjoy the
status of deemed universities. All these universities and institutes have been
established mainly on the pattern of the Land Grant Institutions of USA. The
state agricultural universities and the ICAR institutes have the responsibility of
under graduate and the post graduate education in agricultural and allied
disciplines. The ICAR provides technical and financial support to the State
Agricultural Universities.
In order to increase the potential of agricultural research, it is essential that
agricultural scientists be adequately exposed to the statistical techniques. The
Statisticians working in SAU’s and ICAR institutions in India provide statistical
and statistically related expertise for a diverse clientele. In addition, many
SAU’s have the teaching program of Agricultural Statistics at under-graduate
(UG), post-graduate (PG) and doctoral levels. The course curriculum, system of
education, admission, system of examination and grading all vary from
institution to institution. Therefore, there is an urgent need to evaluate the
programs of agricultural Statistics at various universities/institutes. Keeping
above things in mind, this presentation is planned to highlight Teaching
Agricultural Statistics in SAU’s and ICAR institutes. Academic programs and
their curricula have been discussed. Some ways and means for Improvement
in Agricultural Statistics education in India have been suggested.

2. Teaching of Agricultural Statistics in India
During last few decades statistics has penetrated into almost all sciences
like agriculture, biology, business, social, engineering, medical, etc. Its wide
and varied applications have lead to the growth of many new branches, such
as Industrial Statistics, Biometrics, Biostatistics, Agricultural Statistics and the
most recently developed Statistical Bioinformatics. These branches have
emerged as distinct entities or subjects with a bulk of statistical techniques
specific to their application areas. Agricultural Statistics comprises the area of
statistical science that deals directly with the problems of field
experimentation and interpretation of results in agricultural sciences.
Agricultural Statistics is the most important discipline regarding the
training of the research scientists, to help them in planning of their
experiments and in the analysis of data and drawing inferences thereof. In
addition to statistical research, which is applicable to agricultural problems
and consulting activities, agricultural statisticians also participate in
collaborative research projects with scientists from other departments.

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