The National Agriculture and Fisheries Education Systems (NAFES) Technical Committee on Accreditation visited the university, Feb. 16-17, to evaluate the College of Aquatic Sciences and Applied Technology (CASAT) to assess whether the college qualifies as a regional university in fisheries.

The NAFES accreditation is in accordance with R.A. 8435 or the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act (AFMA) of 1997 which seeks to establish a network of National Centers of Excellence (NCEs) and Provincial Institutions (PIs) in agriculture and fisheries education.

The technical panel was formed by the Commission on Higher Education, one of the AFMA implementers. It will look into institutional profile and other areas such as instruction, physical facilities, research, and extension.

The university will compete with DMMMSU, PSU, and ISPSC for the honor. Once MMSU would be selected as regional university, the rest of the other SUCs in the region will just be named provincial institutions in fisheries.

The university’s agriculture program was exempted from evaluation as it was recently recognized as Center of Development in Agriculture.

The NAFES visiting team was composed of Dr. Carlos Baylon, the team leader, and Prof. Ruben Silang and Dr. Reynaldo Agcaoili of the Commission on Higher Education-Regional Office I.