Frontline master mariner, Capt Adewale Ishola has faulted the Rector of Maritime Academy of Nigeria (MAN) in Oron, Akwa Ibom State, Mr. Joshua Okpo for daring to say that the academy does not want to be upgraded into a maritime university.
Capt Ishola who is former President of Nigerian Association of Master Mariners (NAMM) told Shipping Position Daily in Lagos last week that he was among the professionals who were constituted to develop the university curriculum for MAN Oron in preparation for the upgrading.
Frontline master mariner, Capt Adewale Ishola has faulted the Rector of Maritime Academy of Nigeria (MAN) in Oron, Akwa Ibom State, Mr. Joshua Okpo for daring to say that the academy does not want to be upgraded into a maritime university.
Capt Ishola who is former President of Nigerian Association of Master Mariners (NAMM) told Shipping Position Daily in Lagos last week that he was among the professionals who were constituted to develop the university curriculum for MAN Oron in preparation for the upgrading.
The master mariner expressed surprise at the Rector's statement, saying that upgrading MAN, Oron into a university would not make it to lose focus of why it was established, neither will it cause Nigeria to be removed from the IMO's white list as being feared by Mr. Okpo.
He disclosed that MAN Oron’s University curriculum is being designed to run side by side with the diploma certificates which the academy is currently issuing.
Capt. Ishola argued that the Regional Maritime University, Ghana was initially an academy just like MAN Oron before it was upgraded into a university. He said that many Nigerian cadets today prefers to go to Ghana while MAN Oron is under-developed.
He said: "I was one of the professionals invited to develop the curriculum for their transition into a university, so I am surprised if he (Rector) is now saying that they are not ready for that"
"The issue is that they could run what they are doing as an academy now side-by-side with the university curriculum so that we don't throw away the main purpose why the academy was formed, they would keep running their diploma courses, but university is bigger and offers more courses"
"The problem we are having in this country is that people believe too much in degrees and not in the technical aspects, they are always reluctant to go to sea, this was why MAN Oron wanted to be upgraded"
"This is what happened to the Regional Academy in Ghana, they were on the same line before it was upgraded into a University, we are going into a modern way of doing things and it was modernization that brought it about " Capt Ishola said.
He however argued that the academy still requires a lot of funding and support from government, especially from the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) in order to be able to meet modern expectations.
He argued that the 5% fund being given to the academy by NIMASA is not fixed and could not be enough to meet the needs of the academy.
According to him, the exact amount of the 5% depends greatly on how high or low NIMASA's revenue for the year is.
"The academy still requires assistance because NIMASA is spending a lot of money to build universities and sending cadets abroad for training; more than 2000 of them, this is a lot of money, if we have developed the academy we have here to a world standard, we don't need to send anybody out, NIMASA would have used the money to improve on the academy"
"The 5% that the academy is entitled to is not a fixed amount of money, it depends on the revenue accruing to NIMASA which is not stagnant, it is either going up or going down depending on the state of the economy"
"It is only MAN Oron that can place a value to what they are getting because it usually fluctuates depending on exchange rates" he said.
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