An expert from fisheries education has stressed the need to produce more fisheries professionals to meet the growing demand for them.

Speaking at a technical session of the workshop on ‘Strategies for improving professional fisheries education in India’, organised by the College of Fisheries in Mangaluru on Thursday, S Felix, Vice-Chancellor of the Nagapattinam-based Tamil Nadu Dr J Jayalalithaa Fisheries University, said fisheries professionals should form at least 10 per cent of the total agricultural graduates produced in the country. At present, it is below 3 per cent.

Growing demand

The estimated demand of fisheries professionals and para-professionals will be in the range of 26,900 a year by 2022. Of this, around 19,000 professionals and para-professionals will be required in aquaculture alone.

Stating that there are 30 professional fisheries colleges in the country, Felix said 11 of them offer only four-year undergraduate programme. The present annual intake capacities of undergraduate, postgraduate and Ph D programmes in the country are 1,079, 417 and 181, respectively, he said, adding that there is a huge demand-supply gap.

He said a lot of State universities are under-funded and lack good infrastructure, and teachers are poorly trained. Added to this, there is shortage of faculty in many fisheries education institutes. Many follow outdated and rigid curricula and pedagogy.

Poor training

Referring to the absence of industry-oriented curriculum in fisheries education, he said fisheries professional education system requires better understanding of the industry trends.

Institutes cannot be developed with government funds alone. There is a need to develop infrastructure in fisheries education sector on public-private partnership model. There is lack of private funding in the sector, he added.

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