Assessment of Diploma Agricultural Students' Attitude towards Educational Sustainability: A Study of Selected Agricultural Training Institutes of Bangladesh

Abstract

Aims: Sustainability in agriculture can be better understood in the form of learning process. Hence, sustainability education describes the practice of teaching for promoting sustainability in education. Through this article it has been assessed the Bangladeshi diploma agricultural students' attitude towards sustainability in education.  Study Design: A descriptive survey design was administered into this study where interview schedule was the main tool being utilized to collect data from the respondents.   Place and Duration of Study: Out of 15 government Agricultural Training Institute (ATI), this study was carried out in Sher-e-Bangla Nagar, Dhaka ATI and Shimultali, Gazipur ATI of Bangladesh. Data were collected from the 6th Term students of the two ATIs. Methodology: The total number of 248 students of 6th term of the two ATIs were the population of the study. Out of these students, 90 students were considered as the sample. The data collection instrument, i.e., the interview schedule was prepared as per the objective of this study. Moreover, five point Likert scale was utilized to judge the attitude of the students and all the statistical calculation were done by means of SPSS program.   Results: Most percentage of the students (87%) were in between 20 years of age and entered ATIs as students after completing Secondary School Certificate (SSC) with average GPA of 3.71 in a scale of 04. The findings of this study exhibited that maximum students were moderately agreed to the sustainable diploma agricultural educational statements. Out of 14 different statements/items, half of the statements were moderately agreed and five items were disagreed by the respondents. Moreover, most of the respondents perceived sustainable agricultural education as an important tools of agricultural development of Bangladesh, although currently the respondents were not obtaining sufficient sustainable agricultural knowledge from their respective institutions.            Conclusion: The implication of the findings stated that educational organizations can play crucial role to implement sustainability in education. Therefore, the concerned authority can positively think about the existing curriculum of the Diploma Agricultural Education based on the attitude of the students and can adopt sustainable agricultural education which can enable the students to think and practice sustainability in agriculture and other fields.