The Maritime Academy of Nigeria, Oron, Akwa Ibom State, has disclosed that the institution lacks training ships and other relevant educational materials for cadets’ practical training.
Acting Rector of the academy, Dr. Mkpandiok Mkpandiok, said, “The academy is also in dire need of a few other simulators among which are the GMDSS, engine and radar ARPA simulators. The academy also requires 12 units ECDIS simulators for effective training.
“The absence of these facilities have driven a good number of Nigerians to similar maritime training institutions in the West African sub-region, to our own detriment as a nation, and the disappointment of the founding fathers of MAN, Oron.
“The academy must, as a matter of priority and urgency, own a survival training pool for the practical training of cadets and other students for short course programmes. There is the need to equip the e-library facility with up-to-date books and journals of relevance to the maritime and even oil and gas industries,” he said.
Amidst concern in some quarters that many seafarers are not having the requisite skills to match the certificates they are parading, the MAN boss added that maritime training was beyond the acquisition of paper qualifications.
Mkpandiok argued that unlike most training where the acquisition of a certificate was based on academic knowledge, that of the maritime academy was hinged on competence.
He said, “In the maritime education and training, the emphasis is not on paper qualification. That is why they call their own certificate, certificate of competency. In other words, the pertinent question is how competent are you? It is a vocational programme.”
He also expressed dismay that the Regional Maritime Academy in Accra, Ghana had gone farther than the MAN, Oron, in terms of training standards, with many Nigerians trooping to the former Gold Coast in search of better training facilities and opportunities.
He said, “The academy in Accra came into existence same time with Oron. Today, it can train up to Master Mariners and Chief Engineers. The Academy is suffering. It may not be totally a problem of the management; funding is a major aspect and this is government’s fault.
“Most of the cadets, after their two years’ National Diploma in the academy, are on the streets. They cannot make progress in their seafaring career because there is no berth on board a ship for them to do their 12 to 18 months training and without that aspect of the training, whatever they did in Oron is wasted and they go back to nursery school.
“This is the reason we are crying of dearth of maritime professionals in the industry, because these people cannot go further or how will they qualify as seafarers? I may not be totally right; it is like a doctor who has not done his housemanship qualifying as a professional. You want to have qualified seafarers who have not gone to sea, and to tell you, even some of them who are lecturing in the academy have not gone to sea.”
