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

[HUGH]

Mike,

Eleven out of ten for the writer of that piece.  Modern apprenticeships?  There are no symbols on my keyboard appropriate to my response. It must be obvious even to the idiots presently making policy that a long stint on a cadet ship, or as a cadet on another ship, is the only way left to do it, whether deck or engine room - there are almost no marine engine builders remaining to produce skilled non-cadet entrants in that field, and (from what the writer says) increasingly little in the way of a body of competent staff to allow those entering via other engineering routes to come up to speed.  Not for nothing were the qualifying periods for certificates dependent on pre-sea experience - I seem to recall 8 years was the period for those having a degree and no practical, while 15 months was the minimum. What we have now is a situation where people who may only have seen photos or drawings of ships and machinery at college are encouraged to think they are competent to operate aboard a real ship.  And down below there is the added problem that the engine room is that noisy place outside the control room, full of strange shapes, and even stranger shapes when the alarm goes in the middle of a sound sleep up top.

The bean counters have been in charge for too long.

Hugh.

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