Containerisation of MET- Moving towards a global maritime education system

In order to be relevant and efficient, Maritime Education and Training (MET) has to constantly evolve to meet changing industry and social demands that are influenced by many factors including development of technology, cost to industry and MET institutions, changes in legislation for safety, security requirements, and environmental concerns, etc.

Although International Maritime Organisation (IMO) continues to play an active role in prescribing the competencies and standards for training and certification of seafarers through various conventions and associated national legislation, the shipping world is yet to implement a comprehensive and uniform global standard for MET. There are many factors that contribute to this discrepancy in standards across the maritime world, including:

• varying education backgrounds of seafarers from different countries and regions;
• cultural, ethnic and demographical diversities of seafarers;
• affordability of MET facilities; and
• reluctance to break away from the deep rooted traditions and practices.

This paper explores the above issues across the regions and looks into strategies to standardise MET across the maritime world, with parallels drawn with the aviation industry standards and practices. Interestingly, it is noted that the maritime industry is able to standardise practices across boundaries in operations, such as the containerisation of break bulk cargo that revolutionised cargo operations, significantly improving speed, efficiency and safety.

A similar approach is discussed, referred to as the ‘Containerisation of MET’ in an attempt to unify the standards and processes inherent to maritime education, training and assessment to achieve one global standard. Although the proposed containerisation of MET would take a few years to achieve its goal worldwide, if properly designed and implemented will result in globalising MET, providing seafarers with the:

• ability to study modules in locations anywhere around the world;
• complete modules while sailing, without adverse downtime; and
• appear for assessments anywhere in the world.

The benefits for the respective certification authorities are that the results of assessments will be accessible and accepted by all participating institutions through secure web based portals and the certificates issued will be verified by each administration through Port State Control MOU’s.