Solomon Islands industry supports university training

In February this year, National Fisheries Developments (NFD) Limited and Soltai Fishing and Processing Limited, the Solomon Island tuna fishing and processing operators, welcomed six Solomon Island students from the University of Natural Resources and Environment (UNRE) in Papua New Guinea to their Noro facility in the Western Province. The six students will gain exposure in tuna fishing at NFD and tuna processing at Soltai, during their six week university attachment.

This training opportunity came about through the planning and discussions between the Solomon Island (SI) Ministry of Fisheries & Marine Resources, UNRE and the EU-funded DevFish2 project, which is implemented by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community and the Forum Fisheries Agency. It was deemed sensible and cost-effective to have Solomon Islands students do their industrial work placement in Solomon Islands.

Most of these students are in their third year, and all are enrolled in fisheries and marine science programmes. As part of their programme, they are required to undertake a six-week industry attachment in a real working environment.

And NFD/SOLTAI were only too pleased to offer this work opportunity to the local Solomon Island students, two female and four male. NFD Director, Adrian Wickham said, ‘This opportunity is one that should be encouraged and developed strategically, in collaboration with higher learning institutions like UNRE, where young SI students like these six can learn and benefit from actual work experience before they leave university.’

He added, ‘NFD/SOLTAI have always been receptive to developing the Solomon Island human resource capacity, so that the local private sector in this industry is serviced by skilled locals and, importantly, this is an employment advantage for Solomon Islanders.’

All the students said that they would try to get plenty of real work experience from whatever the company managers have them do during the six weeks. They hope to learn not only how applicable their technical fields of study are but also to understand and appreciate the practical and real environment of a work place. All the students hope to enjoy their six weeks at Noro.

The DevFish2 project provided funding support for the students’ travel cost and their daily subsistence allowance for the six weeks.

For further information on the EU-funded DevFish project and what assistance is available, contact any of the DevFish2 project team: FFA: Cette adresse email est protégée contre les robots des spammeurs, vous devez activer Javascript pour la voir. ; Cette adresse email est protégée contre les robots des spammeurs, vous devez activer Javascript pour la voir. or at SPC: Cette adresse email est protégée contre les robots des spammeurs, vous devez activer Javascript pour la voir. .