The first shrimp production school in Eastern Visayas (Region 8) will soon rise in Samar to increase the region’s output of high-quality shrimps and improve product commercial appeal, both in local and international markets.

Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) Region 8 Director Juan Albaladejo said their office and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) signed a memorandum of agreement on Wednesday for this undertaking.

Albaladejo said in a phone interview Thursday the signing formalized the partnership between the two agencies in honing technical personnel who are proficient in managing shrimp grow-out farms and hatcheries.

“A competent standard curriculum will be developed and adapted by the shrimp school in a bid to become an accredited assessment center by the TESDA,” he added.

Learning modules will be developed with all the regional shrimp program focal persons in the country through cluster workshops.

“Training will also be conducted to ensure good quality of the competence-based standard curriculum. Schooling will run from four to eight months,” Albaladejo said.

The school will rise within the complex of the Jiabong Aquaculture Production and Technology Center in Jiabong, Samar. The target is to open in the last quarter of 2022, according to BFAR.

The fisheries bureau’s main office has already downloaded PHP7 million for the establishment of the shrimp school.

Both BFAR and TESDA have been conducting regular meetings and workshops for the development of their learning modules and in preparation for the shrimp school’s opening.

Scholarship slots for prospective trainers will be granted by TESDA while the monitoring of the program’s progress will be handled by the “Hipon Iangat ang Produksyon” (Hipon) program of BFAR.

The BFAR created the Hipon program to provide strategies and interventions to increase shrimp production while providing better quality and marketable products.

Eastern Visayas is one of the least shrimp-producing regions in the country.

In 2021, the region produced 440.48 metric tons (MT) of shrimp, double the 172.85 MT output in 2020 but still below the 458.07 MT yield in 2017. (PNA)