From available statistics, there more than 5,000 cadets of the Maritime Academy of Nigeria(MAN), Oron who though completed their National Diploma programme between 2001 and 2012, who have not been unable to proceed for the Higher National Diploma (HND) level because they unable to acquire sea-time experience. Worse still, they are unemployable, because they can not be issued with Certificate of Competency (CoC), a mandatory requirement for placement on board.
From available statistics, there more than 5,000 cadets of the Maritime Academy of Nigeria(MAN), Oron who though completed their National Diploma programme between 2001 and 2012, who have not been unable to proceed for the Higher National Diploma (HND) level because they unable to acquire sea-time experience. Worse still, they are unemployable, because they can not be issued with Certificate of Competency (CoC), a mandatory requirement for placement on board.
Giving further insight, the Rector of MAN, Oron; Mr Joshua Okpo, said the development is compounded by the lack of a training vessel and the dearth of Nigerian shipping companies that can take the cadets on board.
There are only two government –owned maritime training institutions, namely MAN, Oron and the Federal College of Fisheries and Marine Technology, these are the two that are ‘recognised’ as maritime training institutions. Outside of these, there are scores of accredited maritime training institutions, many of which have been tagged ‘mushroom’ by some stakeholders.
In contrast however, Philippines has 66 functional maritime training institutions, all of them of international standard, handling marine engineering, marine transportation and a lot of other maritime courses. They are the largest supplier of ship crews in the world as their cadets’ work on board ships all over the world.
Shamefully, it is in some of these institutions that Nigerian cadets are distributed among. They are: University of Perpetual Help System, Lyceum of the Philippines University, (Lyceum International Maritime Academy (LIMA) in Batangas Province and University of Cebu. All equipped with state of the art facilities for maritime education.
Apparently realizing the need to improve on the level of maritime training in Nigeria, NIMASA has now has a National Seafarers Development Programme (NSDP), it has also established maritime studies facilities in some Universities.
NIMASA initiated the NSDP scheme in 2008, which is aimed at producing qualified Nigerian merchant Navy officers and ratings by sponsoring their training abroad in nautical science, marine engineering and marine transportation as well as naval architecture amongst others, up to degree level. The programme is designed to radically increase Nigerian capacity in seafaring, as the present crop of master mariners are ageing. This is because of the urgency in the development of human capacity for the maritime industry, reputed to be the largest revenue earner for government after oil and gas.
While we agree that government alone (through MAN, Oron and the College of Fisheries and Marine Technology) cannot meet the need of the nation in the area of maritime education, we are not in support of the predominance of dignified secondary schools that are currently bestriding our landscape in the name of offering maritime education.
Certainly, even the few that have been accredited by the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) only offers management courses. There is none that offers nautical or marine engineering studies. With this type of curriculum, the products can certainly not pass for seafarers.
What Nigeria needs at this period is a deliberate policy on maritime education that is tailored towards churning out qualified seafarers, who can advance from such nautical schools to commence sea time and from there, become qualified professionals.
We commend the determination of some privately-run maritime institutions that are offering opportunities for Nigerian youths to acquire maritime education, we put it on record that some of them are actually up to the standard prescribed for them by the NBTE, which is the accrediting authourity.
But, without denigrating some of the very few maritime schools that have been accredited by NBTE, certainly products of these schools are not what will fill the vacuum that currently exists in the seafaring profession.
What Nigeria needs is a crop of young cadets in well-structured and equipped nautical colleges, who after graduation will acquire sea time experience and from there become qualified seafarers.
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