[BITList] Fwd: Lloyd's List: Send to Colleague

[Michael Feltham]

Begin forwarded message:

From: enquiries at lloydslist.com
Date: 6 January 2009 08:09:22 GMT
To: mj.feltham at madasafish.com
Subject: Lloyd's List: Send to Colleague


The below article was sent to you from Mike Feltham (mj.feltham at madasafish.com 
) with the following message: I thought you might be interested in the  
article below.

The long search for competence
Michael Grey - Tuesday 6 January 2009

REGARDLESS of how the current economic situation develops, the demand  
for education and training throughout the whole of the maritime  
industry remains at a critical level. As the industry enters what may  
be a serious downturn, it is important to reflect that in terms of  
human resources the industry is still suffering from its failure to  
recruit during the last prolonged recession in the 1980s and early  
1990s.

A whole missing generation of people who would now be heading for  
senior management positions ashore and those who would be senior  
officers on board ship were just not recruited during this extended  
period, while the depressed state of the industry at that time saw  
large numbers of its brightest people leave for better opportunities  
in more optimistic sectors.

The challenge, it might be argued, is to prevent history repeating  
itself to increase, if not to maintain, recruitment levels and expand  
education and training so that we do not once again fall into this  
trap. And it is also to recognise that the industry needs to do more  
to get better value from its education and training, so that the  
people in the systems emerge not merely bearing paper qualifications,  
but are provided with the relevant skills that the industry needs and  
which enables them to contribute properly.

Which suggests that new attitudes to ‘competence’ are needed both by  
those providing the education and training and by those who validate  
the qualifications that are being earned. Because it has become clear  
that at every level across the industry there is growing  
dissatisfaction at education and training, much of which which has  
remorselessly been devalued to ‘lowest common denominators’ produced  
by the need for global qualifications. In short, both afloat and  
ashore; ‘competence’, which means ‘sufficient’ and ‘fit’ in addition  
to ‘legally qualified’, needs to be redefined.

Among industry professionals, there is a perceptible backlash against  
the direction of officer training for sea staff. Senior officers are  
increasingly remonstrating at the competence levels of junior officers  
who have completed their training and are supposed to be competent  
watchkeepers, yet whom they cannot trust in charge of a navigational  
watch. Training courses which are heavily college oriented, with  
little or no sea time, are criticised.

It is significant that after a long period where cadet ships were  
regarded as an unnecessary luxury, they have been identified as a  
training tool which produces this elusive quality of competence.  
Despite their increased costs, a growing number of high quality  
operators are opting for this sort of training, which has the benefit  
of reinforcing the company ethos in addition to imprinting the right  
skills necessary for the operation of the company’s ships.

There is still a crisis in the availability of training places at sea,  
where shipbuilders have been permitted to ruthlessly cut down  
accommodation so that there is scarcely a spare bunk for anyone  
additional to the minimum crew numbers. It might be that a more  
obliging attitude from shipbuilders running out of work will be  
evident in the coming years. But the BIMCO/ISF injunction of more than  
10 years ago that “every ship needs to carry at least one trainee  
aboard if the manning crisis is to be averted” still holds good today,  
and is similarly honoured in the breach.

The industry also needs to get away from the view that once an officer  
has a master’s or chief’s certificate, that is the last training these  
people will ever have to do. At long last, the concept of continuing  
professional development is registering with the best maritime  
industry employers, while more thoughtful people are recognising the  
importance of career development to keep these people, once recruited  
with difficulty, regarding their job as indeed part of a through  
working life career.

The shipping industry has a long way to go in providing a suitable  
range of continuing professional development opportunities for both  
seafaring and shore-side staff. There are a number of promising  
masters’ courses available, which, it is fair to say, have yet to be  
properly appreciated by the industry which, at one time, almost  
gloried in its attitudes of anti-intellectualism. There is yet to be a  
maritime industry ‘staff college’ which can hone the talents of those  
identified as ‘high flyers’, although there are a number of specialist  
courses available both for distance learning and full time study.

It is still a big ask to expect people in middle management to  
undertake this self improvement in their spare time, and insufficient  
numbers of employers who are happy to to support these endeavours.

The legacy of a shipping industry which when an officer declared that  
he was to study for higher qualifications was effectively struck off  
the payroll lives on in many companies. Notable exceptions, as they  
have always been, are the oil companies whose machinery for talent  
spotting and career development has long been recognised.

But there is also work to be done at what might be described as ‘entry  
level’ for shore side employment in shipping offices, brokers and port  
agents. In countries like the UK, where there is a desperate effort  
made in secondary schools to send students to higher education, almost  
regardless of its quality or industrial need to meet government  
diktats, there is now a dearth of the young people who would once  
answer an advertisement for a ‘smart boy’ who would start in shipping  
at ground level gaining experience, eventually qualifying for  
professional status and moving into the top echelons.

The death of the apprenticeship system (although ‘modern’  
apprenticeships are said to offer an alternative) and this frenzy for  
higher education have produced many negative results, not least being  
that the quality of the young person emerging at the end of secondary  
education may be open to criticism in the literacy and numeracy  
stakes. Nevertheless, there are promising schemes that have been  
devised to provide vocational training for youngsters willing to apply  
themselves.

Despite this perhaps rather negative overview, there are many  
promising developments in the educational and training fields. Above  
all there is a more critical attitude to what amounts to quality  
training that will produce people with the right range of skills.  
Competence, ashore and afloat might eventually mean what it should.

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