218 Governance and Education
language is spoken, the English and American word for extension translates as
perkembangan. The British and the Germans talk of advisory work or Beratung,
which has connotations of an expert giving advice but leaving the final responsibil-
ity for selecting the way forward with the client. The Germans also use the word
Aufklärung (enlightenment) in health education to highlight the importance of
learning the values underlying good health, and to emphasize the need for arriving
at more clarity on where to go. They also speak of Erziehung (education), as in the
US where it is stressed that the goal of extension is to teach people to solve prob-
lems themselves. The Austrians speak of Forderung (furthering) meaning some-
thing like ‘stimulating one to go in a desirable direction’, which again is rather
similar to the Korean term for ‘rural guidance’. Finally, the French speak of vul-
garisation, which stresses the need to simplify the message for the common man,
while the Spanish sometimes use the word capacitacion, which indicates the inten-
tion to improve people’s skills, although normally it is used to mean ‘training’.
Evolving definitions
Enlightenment definitions of extension
Initial meanings of the term ‘extension’ – as well as international equivalents of the
term – have been influenced significantly by ‘enlightenment thinking’. Although
different nuances exist, the basic thrust is that ‘the common folk’ are to a degree
‘living in the dark’, and that there is a need for well-educated people to ‘shed some
light’ on their situation by means of educational activities. This reflects that the
early conceptions of extension were somewhat paternalistic in nature; that is, the
relationship between the extensionist and their clients was essentially looked at as
being similar to the teacher/student or parent/child relationship, placing the exten-
sion agent in an ‘expert’ and ‘sending’ position and their audience in a ‘receiving’
and ‘listening’ role. In line with this tradition, many definitions of agricultural
extension emphasize its educational dimensions:
Extension is a service or system which assists farm people, through educational proce-
dures, in improving farming methods and techniques, increasing production efficiency
and income, bettering their levels of living, and lifting social and educational standards.
(Maunder, 1973, p3)Extension is an ongoing process of getting useful information to people (the communi-
cative dimension) and then assisting those people to acquire the necessary knowledge,
skills and attitudes to utilise effectively this information and technology (the educa-
tional dimension). (Swanson and Claar, 1984, p1)It must be noted that each definition is a product of its time. When ‘enlighten-
ment’ conceptions of extension were formulated there was still a firm belief in the
potential and blessings of science as an engine for modernization and develop-
ment, and there was a genuine concern that everybody should be able to pick the