No abstract

This study aims to assess farmers' awareness and perception towards agriculture risk management and insurance in Nepal's Kaski and Chitwan districts. Despite agriculture being the primary occupation for more than 60% of the population, the contribution of agriculture to GDP remains at 23%. Agriculture insurance is a new concept in Nepal, and the growth of the insurance market has been unimpressive over the past twelve years. The study's sample consists of existing agriculture insurance policyholders who have received or are in the process of receiving claims. Data was collected using a structured questionnaire from 200 respondents in Bharatpur and 200 respondents in Pokhara Metropolitan city, with a five-point Likert scale measuring awareness and perception. Results suggest that farmers are generally aware of the risks associated with agriculture and perceive insurance to be a useful scheme. Trust between farmers and insurance companies is deemed essential for insurance to succeed. Economic and claims-related factors were found to be more influential than family size and education, while the sex and age of respondents were insignificant. The study implies that while insured and claim-recipient farmers have a fair awareness of agriculture insurance, they lack traditional risk management techniques

 Background: COVID-19 pandemic has forced educational institutions throughout the world to shut, putting academic calendars in jeopardy. To continue the academic activities, most educational institutions have switched to online mode of learning. Objective: Against this backdrop, the study aims to identify the perception and attitude of the undergraduate students towards e-learning during Covid-19 pandemic, to determine the online learning characteristics of the students across different academic year, and to explore the factors that influence the online learning activities of the students. Method: The study employed a descriptive cross-sectional research design. The self-administered questionnaire was developed after a thorough assessment of the literature and consultation with topic specialists, and it included demographic information about the research participants, as well as their perceptions and attitudes regarding online classes. The questionnaire was created on Google Forms, and the link was distributed to the students of all the four schools through Viber and Messenger groups. Data was collected online from 300 undergraduate students at Pokhara University in Nepal. Descriptive statistics (frequency, percentage) and inferential statistics were used to examine and interpret the data. The Chi-squared test was employed to analyze the link between the student’s online learning characteristics and academic year. To discover the characteristics that impact online learning activities, exploratory factor analysis was performed. Result: The results indicated statistically significant association of online learning characteristics of students of different academic year with availability of alternative power source, internet service, digital platform used and availability of basic computer skill and continuation of online class. Majority of the students evinced a positive attitude towards online classes. Online learning was deemed advantageous since it offered learners with flexibility and convenience. Furthermore, teachers devote appropriate time to studying, motivate students to learn, and emphasize student-centered learning. However, students are dissatisfied with the teachers’ online teaching skills owing to a lack of training and familiarity with modern information technology. Conclusion: The study concluded that although students reported positive attitude towards online classes, there are serious challenges of power backup or alternative power supply, poor connectivity, unfamiliarity of digital platforms and poor ICT skills among students. Teachers need to be trained properly for the effective and productive teaching and learning along with proper handling of digital platforms. The school/ college/ university must have a well-established IT infrastructure for the smooth operation of online classes.

Background: There is widespread agreement that training and performance are positively associated in the prior studies. However, there is a lack of empirical evidence to establish the mediating role of the workplace environment in the relationship between training and performance. Objectives: The purpose of the study was to examine the relationship between training effectiveness and work performance and the mediating role of the workplace environment. Methods: We used consecutive sampling to select respondents, adopting a descriptive cross-sectional research approach with a sample of 205 Nepalese commercial bank employees across five different commercial banks. To assess the role of the workplace environment in the relationship between training effectiveness and work performance, a self-administered structured questionnaire with 12 items was developed. Data were analyzed using SPSS and analysis of moment structures. The characteristics of the respondents were examined using descriptive statistics such as frequency distribution, and the link between training effectiveness and performance was measured using mean value analysis. Exploratory factor analysis was used to identify the factor structure of the measure used in the study and examine internal reliability. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used to demonstrate the link between the three components, test the hypothesis, and mediation effect.  Results: The findings of training related data indicated that 45.4% of the respondents perceived that training was highly influential, 60.0% were satisfied with the training provided, 43.9% of the respondents reported that their organization focus on both on and off-the-job training, 57.6% felt that training is crucial and 82.4% perceive that training has improved their performance and respondents positively perceived the relationship between training effectiveness and work performance. The exploratory factor analysis revealed that items on work performance, workplace environment, and training effectiveness have higher internal reliability. The hypothesis test results showed a positive association between training effectiveness, job performance, workplace environment, and work performance, and training effectiveness has the highest impact on work performance. Similarly, the results also depicted that the workplace environment mediates training effectiveness and work performance.  Conclusion: The study concluded that the more effective the training, the better the employees’ work performance. As a result, greater emphasis requires improving the context and process of training from the employees’ perspective. The study also concluded that the workplace environment affects training effectiveness and work performance. Therefore, it is essential to note that Nepalese organizations should provide practical training and create a favorable work environment for better work performance.