KAU to address emerging opportunities in technology and entrepreneurship:V-C
The Kerala Agricultural University (KAU) organised a seminar for prospective students and parents at Vellanikkara, Thrissur, recently to create awareness about the university’s newly introduced courses that is expected to facilitate many opportunities for students to improve their employability.
While inaugurating the programme, B. Ashok, Vice-Chancellor (V-C) of the university, noted that the new courses would create many opportunities for education, career, and research within the country and abroad. Some of the courses would be offered under distance mode for which working professionals in agri and allied sectors could join, he said.
T.P. Sethumadhavan, education and career consultant, while delivering a session on ‘Agriculture courses and their opportunities’ said that growing transformation is from agriculture to agribusiness, thus agriculture is moving towards service sector.
“Technology interventions create many opportunities for students in agriculture. This includes automation, Artificial Intelligence, machine learning, drone technology, data science, and sensor-based systems, including internet of things (IoT). Courses on nutrition and dietetics, climate science, wildlife management, environmental science, agribusiness management, food industry management and quality control, and agriculture extension management can offer many opportunities,” he said.
Plus Two students can apply for diploma programmes in agri-mechanisation and retail management programmes. At a time there are several opportunities related to ready-to-eat and ready-to-cook food products, retail management and agribusiness management courses can offer different avenues for students. At a time when food security issues are rising, hi-tech horticulture courses can create potential resource persons to address the demand-supply mismatch in the sector, including technology and trade related issues and exports, Dr. Sethumadhavan said.
In the post-COVID-19 phase, there are many opportunities for life science courses.
MSc courses on developmental economics can strengthen agriculture and rural economy along with promotion of stakeholder-based research initiatives. Library and informatics and bioinformatics will facilitate to get opportunities in knowledge economy and computational biology sectors. Students who complete the programme can work in academia, industry, and services sectors within the country and abroad, he said.
“PG diploma in integrated farm management will facilitate agri and allied graduates to work in production-oriented programmes. Integrated weed management will be useful for augmenting production and productivity from agriculture. MTech in renewable energy engineering will be useful for engineering graduates to excel in energy-based industries, start-ups and academia,” he added.
Director of extension Jacob John explained the facilities available for offering new academic programmes. Around 250 students and parents attended the programme.
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