TRAINING OF FUTURE SEAFARERS NEW CHALLENGES FOR MET:S

Transcription

1 TRAINING OF FUTURE SEAFARERS NEW CHALLENGES FOR MET:S CHRISTER BERGQUIST Captain, Senior lecturer, Head of R & D and International Contacts Kalmar Maritime Academy, Sweden. ABSTRACT Shipping is by nature a genuinely international activity, with strict requirements for harmonized and equal training, regardless of where it is conducted. Onboard vessels every activity or routine is regulated either trough some kind of law or regulation or by various industry norm. This makes our industry one of the most regulated industry sectors existing. Certification and training of the officers and crew manning the vessels are specified in detail, through IMO:s STCW-95 convention. This convention gives guidance to what is considered to be minimum standard for all kinds of training for seagoing officers and is the result of the compromise all IMO:s member countries have been able to agree upon. The convention was first adopted in 1978, partly as a result of some spectacular accidents where it become clear that the ships compliment lacked necessary training to deal with their duties in an unexpected and difficult situation. Already when the convention was adopted it was evident that it did not fully cover the needs of the industry and a process of change was started which ended up in the amendments of 1995, which strengthened the requirements. It took the decsionmakers of the industry 17 years to accomplish the changes that many of the signatory countries agreed upon was needed already when the first convention text was adopted. Right now IMO is working on a renewed updating of the convention, with the ambition to be able to introduce the changes from the year 2010, thus 15 years after the last change. The technical developments within the shipping industry are perhaps somewhat slower than similar processes in comparable industry sectors, but it goes without saying that the training our MET-institutions offer today in accordance with STCW-95, is not fully in line with the needs and requirements that can be put on an officer serving onboard a vessel built in the 21:st century. Education and training in the use and handling of many of the instruments and equipments that can be found onboard a vessel today is simply not existing or at least given an a very basic level due to the fact that these requirements are not covered by the convention. The international shipping community is presently facing a lack of qualified staff that is going to become even worse in the foreseeable future. This situation is also creating new challenges for the MET institutions, not only to produce competent and properly trained officers and engineers, but also to be able to withstand the pressure from the industry to reduce requirements on training and sea time, to be able to produce a higher number of examined individuals faster, to meet the demands. This presentation deals with a number of ideas and proposals on how to deal with the present situation and how to tackle these shortcomings through national and international cooperation. Points of views put forward by the officers of EU:s DG MARE in this respect are also dealt with as part of the suggestions and recommendations. Keywords: Harmonization, Training Requirements, Certificates of Excellence 207

2 1. INTRODUCTION Shipping is by nature a genuinely international activity, with strict requirements for harmonized and equal training, regardless of where it is conducted. Onboard a vessel almost every activity or routine is regulated either through some kind of law or regulations or by an accepted industry norm. All together this makes the industry one of the most regulated industry sectors in existence When it comes to certification and training of the officers and crew manning the vessels, there are detailed specifications, internationally accepted, through IMO:s STCW-95 convention. As we all know the convention gives guidance to what is considered to be minimum standard for all kinds of training for seagoing officers and engineers and is the result of the compromise all IMO:s member countries has been able to agree upon. The convention was first adopted in 1978, partly as a result of some spectacular accidents where it became clear that the ships compliments in question lacked the necessary training to deal with their duties in an unexpected and difficult situation. Already when the convention was adopted it was evident that it did not fully cover the needs of the industry and a process of change was started which ended up in the amendments of 1995, which strengthened the requirements. The technical developments with the shipping industry are perhaps somewhat slower that similar processes in comparable industry sectors, but it goes without saying that the training our MET-institutions offer today, in accordance with STCW-95, is not fully in line with the needs and requirements of an officer serving onboard a vessel built in the 21 st century. Education and training in the use and handling of many of the instruments and equipments that can be found onboard almost any vessel today is simply not existing, or at least given on a very basic level, due to the fact that these requirements are not part of what is stated in the convention. Another aggravating circumstance is that whenever a flag state has adopted a convention, it is up to its own administration to decide how this should be interpreted and adopted into the national legislation. This procedure is unfortunately leading to a situation where the level of knowledge and skill required by a certain certificate, required by the convention, varies substantially from country to country. 2. IDENTIFIED PROBLEMS To better explain what I meant in the last paragraph I will use an example from an EU -financed project which I have been leading during recent years. In the project SECURITAS MARE, which had as its primary goal to create a standardized for the CCMtraining of seafarers, a survey was made to find out how this particular STCW-required training was conducted within the member countries of the EU. This was done in order to make a comparison with the course concept adopted by the project and its members, intended to be presented and promoted as a new EU course standard. As most of you probably know, the course deals with understanding and handling of human reactions in various crisis situations, how to handle large groups of people and also to understand how stress and pressures affects both these larger groups, yourself and your fellow crewmembers. All of which can be said to be important knowledge in any crisis or emergency situation. IMO has, as always with the various short courses included in STCW, produced a so called Model Course, indicating what they considered should be included in a Crisis Management Course and in a Crowd Management course. The survey thus performed showed however that some countries authorities had accepted a course of only four hours, in some cases even a PC-based course was accepted, whereas other countries demanded a course length of a full study week of five days, all of these leading to exactly the same certificate. This certificate is then supposed to be accepted onboard all vessels flying any of the member states flags. It goes without saying that a four-hour-course can not possibly have the same content as a five-day-course and the consequence is that when a Master gets a new Officer onboard holding such a certificate, he will have no knowledge whatsoever of what his new officer in facts understands in this respect. He will most probably believe that the officer has got the same kind of training as he himself got when he went for the course, which 208

3 could be a catastrophic conclusion if the vessel ever ends up in an emergency where the knowledge of how to handle the passengers is really needed from all officers. The comparison and study was originally only done to find out the situation with the EU but was later also extended to include most other countries around the world and it was clearly shown that the situation was similar also in all other countries surveyed where training of seafarers was done. It can thus be verified that there are enormous differences in interpretation regarding the requirements for training and the content of the courses for this comparatively small part of the STCW-convention. Even if I can t scientifically prove it, I still believe that the situation is more or less the same within virtually every other area covered by the STCW-convention and that we today have educations, indeed approved by national authorities or in some cases classification societies, but which in reality differs substantially from one an other in respect of content and depth. This results in a situation where we have several officers serving today with approved certificates, where one could question if they really have the knowledge and skill we will be expecting from them by examining their certificates. Today we also have a huge international lack of qualified seafarers, a lack which has been gradually worsening during the beginning of this century. BIMCO estimates that the industry will be lacking some individuals by the year The figures differs somewhat depending on who stands behind the estimation and during ITF:s conference in Stockholm last June a figure was presented showing an estimated lack of around seafarers the year The participants of the conference was however of the opinion that this figure in reality might be double as high, partly due to the situation with some 9000 vessels in order at shipyards around the world, which all needs to be manned one way or the other. The lack of seafarers has already made some ship owners and ship owners organisations to demand shorter and more simplified training of officers, in order for the MET:s to produce higher numbers of officers to man the international fleet quicker and thus cover some of the shortage. Here the world s providers of officers for the world s merchant fleets stand before an enormous challenge. With the lack of seafarers that the international shipping community is presently facing, and with a situation where the lack of qualified staff is going to become even worse in the foreseeable future, the pressures on the MET institutions can be expected to be increasing from all parties which they normally deal with. One can expect demands for shorter and less detailed courses, shorter sea time requirements and perhaps also demands for more use of PC-based training and training onboard with distance learning courses, all in order to speed up the necessary certifications. Will the MET:s be ready for this challenge, waiting just around the corner? 3. POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS The problem with different levels amongst providers of education for seafarers has since long been addressed by IMO trough inspections and approvals and by introducing so called White Lists where approved institutions are listed. One should however be aware that the problems I have described above are emanating only from institutions appearing on these lists and thus approved by the system. Within the EU, EMSA has been given the task to perform similar inspections at MET:s providing officers to vessel sailing under any of the member states flags. In addition similar inspection has also started to be done at certain institutions within the community and during the autumn of this year such inspections will be preformed at institutions in Sweden and the Netherlands. The idea of some kind of EU-standard for maritime educations has however been clearly rejected by DG- MARE, which is the directorate responsible for the area where issues like maritime education and training and general safety at sea are dealt with. I believe that we all can agree that maritime education and training surely can be said to be an issue crucial to the safety at sea. At a meeting between the responsible officer of DG-MARE and representatives from the project SECURITAS MARE during the spring of this year, it was made very clear by the EU-officers that the projects goals to create a common EU-standard for this type of training was something that they did not want 209

4 to see. It was however made clear to the projects representatives that any kind of enhanced and improved courses and training programs, exceeding the requirements of STCW would be supported by them, in fact they encouraged the representatives to get back with ideas in this respect and preferably in cooperation with several of the MET:s within the union. The course and course concept thus developed by the project SECURITAS MARE is today delivered at all institutions and training providers who have been partners to the projects different stages and have been accepted as an alternative standard in several of EU:s member states. Many of the partners have also continued to spread the ideas and the concept through their own networks, to other institutions with whom they have different forms of cooperation. Through these channels the course has now also been demonstrated at institutions in the Far East and in North and South America. These initiatives constitutes concrete examples on how it is possible through private initiatives to harmonize and equalize part of the education and training for seafarers and this way of working could very well also be adopted as a model for how to solve the problems with variation in depth and content of the various courses. What was made very clear by the officers of DG-MARE was that they wish to see strengthened cooperation between the MET:s of the member states. They wanted to see larger and more extensive networks developed, particularly between the institutions that already today have a reputation of having a high level on their courses and have been successful in their international work. These institutions should work together to develop new courses above the STCW-level which then later could be delivered in a similar manner in as many of the member states as possible. They emphasised particularly various types of Certificates of Excellence without mentioning in detail what they meant exactly with this new term. They also mentioned that such initiatives could be sponsored and supported economically by them, particularly if such courses was leading towards knowledge and skills clearly asked for by the shipping industry and could be said to strengthen the shipping industry of the union. This means in reality that they would be supporting new initiatives to create the courses that may be deemed needed to modernize and upgrade the education of seafarers to bringing the education more in line with modern technology and get out of the situation where the technical developments are running far ahead of the formal requirements. If one thoroughly analysis what was really said by the officer of DG-MARE one will understand that what they was striving for was different types of Master-.level studies. Studies that could assist in providing the shipping industry with competent employees to fill al the gaps that could be foreseen to be needed in the future when the numbers of experienced officer want be enough to even man the vessels sufficiently. It will of course also be necessary to find ways of extending such systems also to all other countries outside of the union. One good example of such an initiative utilizing the participating institutions specific competences are the so called NORDIC MASTER-course developed between MET:s in Kalmar, Gothenburg, Mariehamn, Turku and Vestfold, i.e. a course given partly by two institutions in Sweden, two in Finland and one in Norway, leading to a common degree. More such courses at Master-level are thus needed to complement the existing STCW-courses. More Master-level courses and more common courses between EU:s MET:s will however never solve the problem of lack of officers and seafarers. To at least get close to the problem a compete new thinking and a substantial extended cooperation between the MET:s of the world is needed. Since many years individual countries, individual ship-owners and individual ship-owners associations has been supporting and financed education and training for seafarers in different parts of the world, some MET:s ahs also been part of these initiatives. It is now perhaps time to deepen and increase through larger networks and more partners. The majority of the lecturers and teachers at the MET:s around the world today has a background as seafarers. They have originally chooses to educate themselves into a profession where it is a natural part of the job to stay away from their families for long periods and to spend part of he year far way in an environment very different from the one where they grew up and what they have been used to and are thus not uncomfortable with such situations. By creating larger networks where existing competence could be better utilized and create a system where he competence could be moved around within these networks one could possible come closer to a situation where courses where given in a more harmonized way at different 210

5 institutions. If the participating institutions then also could be active in creating new courses and training programs, as mentioned earlier, I believe a large step could be taken towards a more harmonized level of the given educations and the institutions should be in a better position to withstand demands for shortened and simplified training. There have, in many countries, been a decrease in the number of applications for maritime education for some years, this trend seems however to have been broken recently and it has again become quite popular to become officers for the merchant fleet in many west European countries. One can only speculate of the reasons for this change in popularity but one reason could perhaps be that is has become known also by younger people that an education to become officer or engineer within this area more or less guartees a bundle of job opportunities. At the institution I myself is representing we had moiré then 7 applicants for each seat available to become Master mariner at the last intake this autumn. You can quite easy find similar examples from Germany and the UK, just to mention a few. In many countries, particularly in the so called third world, the education has always had a high status and has been popular. The problem institutions in these countries have been facing has been the difficulty to keep the qualified lecturers with them, since they are offered good job opportunities with much higher salaries if the go to sea as officers instead of staying as lecturers. The institutions today are on top of this also facing problem with the recruitment of new teachers and the situation is not likely going to be any easier for them with the large lack of officers we are facing already in the near future. Also here perhaps a solution could be cooperation and networking with other institutions and some kind of pooling of the competence needed. 4. CONCLUSION To be able to accomplish and create these larger networks and to arrange possibilities for the MET:s around the world to better utilize common resources for the benefit of all, some kind of external financing is needed. Without financial assistance none of the ides mention above could be accomplished. There are already today individual ship owning companies, ship-owners associations and to some extent individual countries aid programs that are directed towards similar activities and are functioning as financiers or co-financiers to individual MET:s or individual training programs. These efforts could perhaps be better coordinate for the benefit of all. Within the shipping community there are several international organisations and groups representing various interests who all should benefit from the creation of a new system in line with the ideas put forward in this paper. My final suggestion is that a new organisation is created, with the goal and purpose to build up such networks and pools, financed by those who finally will benefit from the organisation. Other groups, such as the EU would be able to support the works through financial support and assistance in the creation of the new courses the industry needs and in various ways support the creation of highly qualified networks giving courses leading to the Compliance of excellence which they clearly have been asking for. 211