Teaching statistics and informatics for fisheries students: retrospect and prospects

Abstract

The role of Statistics and Informatics (S&I) Faculty in India’s fisheries education, training and research has been discussed in this paper. An attempt has also been also made to ascertain the present cadre strength of S&I faculty in the eight fisheries institutes under Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) [including CIFE] and in 25 fisheries colleges from all over India. A key observation that emerged out of survey among students of ICAR-CIFE, Mumbai is that, for teaching S&I courses, mostly there are no regular faculty available and these are being taught by hiring guest/ part time/ contractual personnel and at times in few colleges by even non-S&I faculty. The need for conduct of systematic survey to ascertain the actual trained human resource requirements of S&I faculty in the various fisheries sectors has been emphasized. The prospects of S&I faculty are highlighted for teaching and training statistical methods and ICT to fisheries students. There is a dearth of trained and qualified S&I faculty to help fisheries sector of our country to realise its true potential. In most of the fisheries colleges, adhocism is usually adopted when it comes to teaching courses related to S&I. Hence concerted efforts are to be made to have permanent faculty for S&I in all fisheries colleges to maintain quality of education.