PANAJI (GOA): CSIR-National Institute of Oceanography (CSIR-NIO), Goa has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Agricultural Skill Council of India (ASCI), a sector skill council on agriculture and allied sectors functioning under the aegis of National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Govt. of India,  Haryana. The MoU was signed on June 21, 2017 for a duration of five years by Dr V.S.N Murty, Acting Director, CSIR-NIO and Dr S.S. Arya, CEO, ASCI.

ASCI is supported by leading industry players in India with an aim to create an eco-system for quality vocational education in agriculture and allied sectors in order to  meet the entire value chain’s requirements of trained manpower (in terms of quantity and quality) across all levels on a sustained and evolving basis.

The  stated objectives of this collaboration are :- conducting training programmes as per the National Skill Qualification Framework (NSQF), assessment of trainees trained under the different short-term skill based training programmes of CSIR-NIO, to organise the ‘Train the Trainers’ programme at CSIR-NIO, to jointly develop skill development centres for training and capacity building across various segments of fisheries sector and conduct skill gap analysis for the entire fisheries segment in the country or the state as deemed essential and CSIR-NIO would support ASCI in the development of national occupational standards, qualification packs, curriculum and course content for various segments of fisheries in terms of the technical knowhow, validations and other necessities as per their requirements.

Under this MoU, CSIR-NIO and ASCI will collaborate in the various areas of capacity building programmes by bridging gaps and upgrading skills of local workers in the field of aquaculture and fishery sciences.