A Comparative Study on Factors Affecting Occupational Aspirations of Agriculture Students in Public and Private Universities of Punjab

Description

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23976008

Pragati, Manjot Kaur, and Mandeep Sharma (Department of Extension Education and Communication Management, PAU, Ludhiana, Punjab)

Career selection is one of the most important decisions in any student’s life as it shapes their future lifestyle and professional growth. So, it is essential to understand the occupational aspirations of graduating students for improving career decisions among youth. Therefore, the present research was conducted to study the factors affecting occupational aspirations of agriculture students in public and private universities of Punjab. In total, 200 undergraduate agriculture students, 100 each from both selected universities, with an equal representation of male and female respondents. Data were collected through self-structured interview schedule. The findings of the study revealed that a higher proportion of the respondents from both PAU and GKU reported a high level of influence of personal factors, followed by medium level of influence on societal and academic factors. Personal and academic factors showed significant relationship with both jobs in agriculture and non-agriculture sectors, whereas academic factors were significantly related to jobs in agriculture and non-agriculture sectors. Parental and family factors/peer and social factors showed significant relationship with higher education in India and jobs in agriculture sector. Exposure to agriculture was significantly related to higher education in India and job in non-agriculture sector. Similarly, satisfactory consideration showed significant relationship with higher education in India/abroad and job in agriculture sector. Therefore, universities should strengthen career counselling services, skill development programmes and industry exposure opportunities to help agriculture students to make better career decisions.