24. After the presentation of country papers, the Meeting proceeded to review the progress of the various Project activities.
25. The Meeting felt that the cooperation with other projects as well as governments has enabled the achievement of targeted activities in training, despite limited funds. The results and problems of the four training/demonstration courses conducted were reported. The four regional training/demonstration courses conducted to date are:
Eucheuma seaweed culture, Philippines, 2–21 May 1988.
Oyster culture, Republic of Korea, 11 June–7 July 1988.
Seabass culture, Thailand, 1–21 August 1988.
Finfish Netcage culture, Singapore, 4–24 September 1988.
While it was generally assessed that the courses were successful and are an effective means of transferring seafarming culture technologies among countries, some major problems were highlighted. First was the language problem particularly in relation with the participation of farmers in these regional courses. The technicians, apart from attending to their own learning tasks, were also expected to provide translation and elaboration of lessons to the farmers. To overcome this problem it was initially agreed to prepare and distribute the training manuals prior to the start of the courses. Unfortunately this has not been possible mainly due to time constraint. The Meeting suggested that farmers could be more effectively trained at the national level. The technicians trained at the regional level would help conduct the national level training and demonstration courses with possible assistance from the nodal centre that conducted the technician training. A second problem was the need for some countries to be informed of the date and venue of the training courses much earlier for them to have sufficient time to process nominations of suitable candidates. It was also suggested that the age limit of nominees be relaxed for some countries.
26. In addition to the already scheduled training courses on abalone and Laminaria polyculture with molluscs, the Meeting felt the need for training on other seafarming culture systems. In descending order of priority, these are sea cucumber and scallop, Gracilaria, pearl oyster, and cockle. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea offered to host the sea cucumber and scallop training course to be held in September 1989 jointly with the already scheduled abalone course. China, India and Thailand offered to host the Gracilaria, pearl oyster, and cockle courses, respectively. These training courses will be organized subject to the availability of funds.
27. In order to improve the organization and programmes of training courses, it was recommended that back-to-office reports by the trainees should also be copied to the Coordinating Unit of the Project.
