by Serah Aupong – EM TV News, Port Moresby
The National Fisheries Authority has formalised their partnership with the Education Department, to roll out fisheries training in Papua New Guinea next year.
The training will be delivered through the Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) mechanism.
NFA Managing Director, John Kasu, said this is in response to the fisheries developments which are transpiring in the country.
The formality was sealed with the signing of a memorandum of understanding.
Through its training arm, the National Fisheries college, the NFA has responded to a needs assessment report by developing a standardised curriculum. This curriculum will cover two areas.
“Commercial fishing operations certificate 1 and also a course on small scale fishing so we could help in training for both the commercial sector and also for the village community sector as well,” Principal of the college, Jeff Finch, said during the signing ceremony today.
In order to reach the people who need this training, NFA and the Education Department will deliver these courses through TVET schools.
While NFA will provide program materials and training of trainers through its facilities, this MOU means the certificates will be given according to the national training certificates. While TVET has 6 levels, including diploma and advanced diploma, these courses will begin with the basics.
This training will be issued a National Certificate 1 and a National Certificate 2.
“We hope that into the future we will be able to advance that training for NC3 and upwards,” Dr Uka Kombra, Secretary for Education said.
This partnership comes at a time when significant commercial developments in fisheries are happening in country especially around tuna processing plants.
Kasu said Papua New Guineans need to be prepared to take control of these resources.
“So at the same time when we have these developments, these trainings are important for our people,” John Kasu said. He added that the processing plants currently operating in the country are foreign investments, “one day we will also own our own processing plants and we need to upskill our people to be able to manage them.”
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ri9pt1_Wips%3Ffeature%3Doembed%26wmode%3Dopaque%26showinfo%3D0%26showsearch%3D0%26rel%3D0
