An investigation of the skills gap between course learning outcomes of maritime business degrees and onshore employment requirements

This paper explores key industry perceptions, through interviews with 27 senior maritime managers in Australia, Canada and the US, on the employability skills required for onshore maritime professionals. Those perceptions are then compared to the skills identified from the collected nine Course Leaming Outcomes (CLOs) of nine maritime business degrees. The findings show that CLOs and maritime industry requirements tend to converge in areas such as knowledge, self-management and computer/IT skills. Less alignment was evident in CLOs relating to communication and problem solving. By giving more attention to these two CLOS in terms of specific emphasis and depth of study, students will gain more comprehensive skill sets for these critical areas. This paper also recommends that including adaptability, flexibility and an inquiring mind in CLOs may enable students to better respond to the dynamism and complexity inherent in the maritime industry.