Educational advice

Further Education (FE)

An extremely useful and increasingly popular means of developing a career based around angling is within the fields of fisheries and aquatics. There are several means of doing this, and the range of options is set out in the Institute of Fisheries Management booklet on this subject.

In England there are four county-based FE colleges (formerly agricultural colleges) that offer course in fisheries, aquatics and fisheries management. They include Sparsholt (Hampshire), Brooksby (Leicestershire), Hadlow (Kent) and Rodbaston (Staffordshire) colleges. Further details of the Rodbaston courses can be obtained at www.rodbaston.ac.uk.

Each college offers full-time fishery management and aquatics courses at First Diploma (1-year) and National Diploma (2-year) levels.

Higher Education (HE)

The colleges also offer two-year Higher National Diploma courses. These open up a far wider range of employment opportunities, as well as providing a framework for progression from Further to Higher Education, with the employment benefits which stem from this. In conjunction with allied academic institutions, there is now the chance to build on the HND course for a further year, leading to an Honours Degree.