Excellency in Aquaculture Science, Extension and Education

Economics Drive to a New Approach in Higher Education

Taking together the current economic situation on the one hand and the advancements in communication and media technology on the other, I can envision distance-learning, online-based educational programs that will be suitable for both undergraduate and graduate students, where hybrid, synchronous and asynchronous classes will be used while covering every populated region of our planet. The University of Hawai’i, while already running a distance learning program to some extent, will have to develop a solid aquaculture program to answer the future needs of the industry both here in Hawai’i and around the world. While ensuring that we maintain high educational standards, online courses will help us in the following ways: a) by enabling students from around the globe the opportunity to participate in courses who would otherwise be unavailable to them in their current location; b) in reaching more students & making our aquaculture educational program more marketable; c) by accommodating students who cannot be physically present at the university for courses. This is especially important these days when the economic situation forces students to work longer hours and thus cannot attend classes during regular working hours; d) adding diversity to our program (people from around the globe); e) making courses more accessible to our current UH students who are located on different islands; and f) providing students with transferable technology skills re: lifelong learning.

Let me demonstrate here the growing need for proficiency in the web technology and its advantage. While being versed in the online technology, the future researchers and extension agents will be mainly communicating and exchanging important information with their fellow farmers via electronic media. For example, surveying, which was quite complicated to produce and analyze in the past has recently become a much easier task to handle with a variety of online tools such as Survey Monkey and Zoomerang.

Sustainable aquaculture is at the heart of our agenda. In addition to putting all our might into developing sustainable and responsible aquaculture, we are facing these days with a major challenge to ensure mutual reinforcement of economic growth, social welfare and environmental protection. Thus, we must join forces to achieve our goals.