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Research Articles

Vol. 23 No. 3: Special Issue: A Global Perspective on Service-Learning and Community Engagement in Higher Education

How Do Academic Agriculturalists Engage in and View Outreach? The Case of Faculties of Agriculture in State Universities of Sri Lanka

Submitted
December 19, 2019
Published
2019-12-19

Abstract

This study aims to fill in the gap in literature on the state of academic engagement in Sri Lanka by investigating types of outreach engagement activities, outreach mechanisms, and attitudes of academic agriculturalists toward outreach. An online questionnaire survey was conducted among the academics (stratified random sample of 257) across eight faculties of agriculture in the state universities of Sri Lanka. According to the results, the average number of outreach activities per academic per year was 2.9, and the majority spent less than 5% of their working time on outreach activities, indicating low involvement in outreach by the academics. However, they held positive views on outreach engagement. Generally, the academics engaged in outreach activities through personal or informal individual contacts. Findings help provide guidelines for strategies to improve outreach engagement by academics at department, faculty, university, and national levels in Sri Lanka.