A coffeehouse is known by its coffee. It’s the same with the Filipino seafarer factory: what better way to tell the quality of local maritime schools than the calibre of their students? This year’s outcome of the Maritime School Assessment Program (MSAP), a private industry initiative which started in 2007, is certainly indicative. A total of 17,516 second-year cadets from 81 maritime academies took the MSAP written examinations in February in three areas: mathematics, English and technical. And how did the lads fare?
Of the 9,406 deck examinees, 4,469 or 47.5% obtained a score of 50% or higher whilst the rest failed. The 8,110 who took the engine exams did not do any better: only 3,463 or 42.7% passed. Further details of the MSAP 2013 outcome, including the top 10 performing maritime schools, can be downloaded from our Downloads section (see ‘Philippines MSAP 2013’). Meanwhile, here’s a quick view of the year-by-year MSAP results:
Clearly, academic performance has improved. There’s reason to be pleased but not to celebrate. The schools which voluntarily participate in the MSAP are wont to send their best students to take the MSAP exams. It’s a matter of pride and prestige for them – plus the fact that cadets who do well in the exams are given priority by manning agencies for shipboard placement. Less than 50% of 17,516 cadets making the grade? This isn’t good enough. The maritime schools could do better. ~Barista Uno
The seafarers’ training issues are the same everywhere. You can hardly find any training center anywhere to provide quality training. They just want to increase their pass rate to attract more ‘BUSINESS’. No wonder some shipping companies established their own training centers and taking care of their training needs themselves. Can anybody blame them?
Capt.Ardeshir Yousefi
ASTA Marine Services
Vancouver/Canada
The only thing needed for all maritime colleges in the country is equipment. There must be sophisticated equipment to be used by students. Let all these training courses be learned in colleges, not after graduation, which all resort to money-making.
I can say cadets from the Philippines are more favorable than those from any other country. I’ve been with these people (foreign seafarers) in my long time experience. They are totally useless. Some of them have certificates but know nothing. I don’t know how they get their certificates. With regards to daily work, it’s totally a mess. You have to monitor their work. In short, your work becomes double if you have this kind of people on board.
Why don’t we compare two ships, one full crew of your kind, and the other full crew Filipino. Let’s see which ship will function well and be worth working for.
You are right, Mervin. I think you got the logic. Let’s apply your opinion to all these auditing people. I don’t think they can run their own fleet with their own people. I have been with these people for several years and i can say most of their engineers rely only on their Asian oilers and most of them play solitaire in the control room during overhauling. But when they speak, they really know everything.
Leon Somar,
I do not agree that the maritime colleges in the Philippines only need equipment. It is square one if they have the right equipment but not the right instructors. The basic foundation in school system is missing something. You can get good cadets everywhere and the attributes to look out for are attitude and the aptitude to learn. In that aspect, you can mould them into good officers with your company’s internal training system.
I took 5 “hungry” cadets from unknown academies in Manila and they are all doing very well after their 1st shipboard training. They only boarded the ship after a series of preparation training in-house. Nowadays, you cannot depend on the schools or training institutes to provide top-class training. The onus lies in the company to groom their cadets into good officers.
Correct attitude and the determination to learn are the basics that we are looking for. I would go with an average cadet rather than taking one academically equipped but with unwanted behavior.
Dear all.
I work with Philippine ratings and officers since 1984. Further had the privilege to work in crewing in Manila for a while.
In Philippines there are a number off issues which lead to officers which are not 100% functioning:
1) Schools become factories sucking money away from students as well shipowners. Nice West Point style uniforms do not disclose the level of knowledge and skills.
2) Knowledge, skills and experience level of instructors/teachers. Salaries are low, the conditions are poor, so who will start a career as teacher/instructor to start with? Lot of part-time instructors who during their leave make a few pesos but do not contribute to a steady system. I was teaching teachers/instructors who were of middle age, sailed as Master and did not understand a lot of what they were supposed to teach. That is scary. But the government will not kick in to create a certification before you can teach to start with.
3) There are too many colleges. It is a wild growth of colleges and schools around the corner institutes etc. Close 80% and you are in business.
4) Corruption, yes, but when looking to the exam system then it must become clear that this is not the level or grade you expect of a College level but you end somewhere high school-plus. COC master degrees are no space science to complete. Also here same problem, level is far too low.
4) Crewing agencies – free trade fine but when regulating certifcation of agencies the wild growth in this sector could be stopped as well. Recruiting is at a very low level and as long you can sell who cares! I refer to a protection structure being the crewing agency who one side has to protect the seafarer and on the other side the principle.
5) Modesty. The Philippine modesty is beautiful but absolute killer in the international market. Officers can hardly reach the top 2 functions because lots of ship owners do not trust them to put them in the seat of responsibility. Although I am confident there are a large number of Philippine officers gifted with leadership qualities, they do not ventilate this clearly or it’s “recognized” as arrogance, etc.
6) The Government must stop trying to negotiate changes – make a plan and ruthlessly execute the plan. This will be the rescue because in the end ship owners do not keep investing, benefiting and paying fairly high salaries. They will deviate to a new source of seafarers who have the knowledge, skills, experience and are relatively non-demading.
Good day.