Feasibility of Introducing a Fisheries Management Course at Post-Graduate Level: Some Observations

This paper is designed to asses the need for a Management Course in Fisheries at Post-Graduate level and identify the preconditions for a contextually relevant introduction of such a course. Accordingly, this paper is divided into five sections. Section-I deals with the emerging of growth in both marine and inland sectors. Section-II deals with the manpower needs of various types for actualising these opportunities. Section-III analyses the curriculum of proposed M.Sc. course in Fisheries Management at Central Institute of Fisheries Education (CIFE). Section-IV deals with some of the preconditions for meaningfully introducing such a course, and Section-V presents some concluding observations. The new emerging opportunities in both marine and inland sub-sectors offer a vast scope for development of the fishery sector. At the same time the operations are getting more and more complex and broad based. While additional technical manpower is extremely necessary to set-up and to operate specific systems, a specialized category of technicians-managers is to take necessary integrated view of the total production. This category is expected to have a broad based view of the total operations of the enterprise from catching or culturing fish to processing and marketing of fish and fish products. The effort of COFE to fulfill this gap is commendable but if this effort is to succeed in a meaningful fashion, it is necessary that above mentioned pre-requisite are created so that the contextual relevance of curriculum to real life situation in fisheries sector can be ensured and a suitable market for these graduates be created and developed.