The College of Fisheries started the academic programme with a 4-year course syllabus, duly approved by the Academic Council of the University in the academic year 1987-88; containing 143 credits. This syllabus contained courses for the students enrolled during 1997-98. Thereafter, a new syllabus framed under the guidelines of the Deans’ Committee was implemented with effect from the academic year 1998-99 and it is being continued. The new syllabus accommodates 160 credit hours in 8 semesters. Again this syllabus was also modified by the 4th Deans’ Committee in the year 2009 containing 170 credits. The same is continuing till date with little modification that leads to increase of total credits upto 176. This syllabus includes In-Plant Training (20 credits) at the VIIth semester and Hands on Training (HoT) (20 credits) at the VIIIth semester.
Initially the College although framed the syllabus to be composed of courses under six major departments; the academic programme progressed without notification of the departments. A decade after starting of the College of Fisheries, the University finally created the following six departments and Faculty of Fisheries Science vide Memo No. AAU/R-417(ii)/99-00/7515- 574 dtd. 21-08-1999 with Assam Gazette notification.
With regards to student intake capacity, the number of seats was fixed at 20 for male students for initial couple of years. But due to demand the introduction of girls’ students had been made from the year 2005. Again with the development of infrastructure and also demand for the human resource in the N.E. region the intake capacity of the College is increased to 25 from 2015. To cater to the need of human resource at higher level the college opened the M.F.Sc. course in Aquaculture discipline in the year 2011 and Ph.D. in Aquaculture from the year 2015.
Having a group of qualified teaching staff from various fisheries institutions of home and abroad, the College endeavours to maintain quality in the teaching programme, even though adequate and modern facilities are scanty. Depending upon the quality of incoming students, the graduates are in a position to express their ability in competitive examinations as well as in finding placement in Employment Avenue. However, the College cannot claim to achieve a higher level in imparting qualitative education, due to lack of adequate facilities and modern equipments for class room teaching.
The College has been endeavouring to adopt the ICAR norms in imparting class room education. It includes adoption of the national pattern of syllabus and introduction of external evaluation system. It may be noted however, that as per the ICAR norms, various departments have not been organized and staffed accordingly. Activities of the college being concentrated to the teaching programme, with the limited teaching staff, emphasis on research activities is limited to having sponsored research schemes from ICAR or other funding agencies. Same is the case with extension activities in the College.
Having a group of highly qualified teachers and researchers, the institution is capable to support economic development of the region through its mandate, provided infrastructural support is made available. Due to inadequate financing, the activities of the College are being forced to be restricted to academic activities only. Negligence and poor perception of the state governments and administration, for fisheries prospects, result in poor utilization of aquatic resource potential in the Region, which otherwise could contribute appreciably to the GDP.
Such a view of the state government, in other words, has affected adversely the growth of this College. It is being reflected in expanding infrastructural facilities to enable to strengthen the educational programme and start post- graduate courses, even after 27 years of existence of the College. The College is still deficient in teaching and other supportive staff, to recognize the academic infrastructure into designated departments. With regard to facilities for extracurricular activities of students, bare minimum facilities exist, which in reality may aid in growth of other facultative qualities of the students. In spite of the various deficiencies, the College has made strident efforts to adopt the ICAR syllabus for the B.F.Sc. degree programme and for M.F.Sc. and Ph. D. (in some discipline). The teaching staff is the capital strength to maintain the academic standard at par with other colleges of the country and thus students not only from the N.E. Region but also from states like Odissa, Kerala and other North Eastern States are studying in this College. Further, the teaching staffs are often associated with various training activities of the Directorate of Fisheries; State Institute of Rural Development (SIRD), National Fisheries Development Board (NFDB), Hyderabad and Central Inland Fisheries Research Institute (CIFRI). No doubt that infrastructural facilities is a major constraint to undertake continued research activities and solve problems faced by fisher folk and so far only a few supportive research projects have been completed in the College. However, it is worth mentioning that efforts of the College with assistance of the NFDBhave resulted in documentation of fish diseases in Assam, livelihood promotion through fish drying and fish product (pickle) development in the state, fish seed raising in beels in low cost cages for stocking in the wetlands of Assam in order to create and enhance fishers’ alternative livelihood, development of management policy for native fish species Gudusia chapra in beels of Assam etc. Principal Investigator of some research schemes have received invitation to be a speaker in workshops, seminar etc. The College although cannot claim to achieve the mandate in full strength, it has reached a point by creating a cadre of trained man power for the region and given opportunities, it would be able to fulfill the goals set for the institution.