INNOVATION IN MARITIME EDUCATION AND TRAINING

The extensive amendments to the STCW Convention agreed in 1995 only came into effect in 2002 with some additional changes in January 2003. The provisions concerning the need for governments to submit quality standard reports to the IMO, concerning their national training and certification systems, were only required to be met as recently as 2004. The paper argues that sufficient time has elapsed to assess the impact of the changes introduced particularly the prime objective of the changes i.e. whether confidence is stored in the validity of seafarers ’ certificates of competency regardless of the country of issue. The paper further argues that since 1995, there have been rapid changes in the design of ships and the equipment used in the navigation and propulsion systems and yet there has been no serious attempt to revise the STCW and/or the IMO model courses in these connections. The changes introduced in 2003 were not extensive and the expected changes in 2010 while they are expected to address several important issues the paper argues that there remains a number of deficiencies in STCW even if all of the proposed changes are implemented. New regulations and conventions in the majority of cases have been reactive and have each come about after a major disaster at sea. The introduction of some of these ne