Group pushes for better education of RP seamen

MANILA, Philippines - International employers blame the country’s poor basic education program for the lack of seafarers qualified for higher positions on maritime vessels.

International Maritime Employers Committee (IMEC) board member Belal Ahmed said there is a need for the government to strengthen programs in Math, Science and Physics to make Philippine maritime school graduates competitive in the global market.

Weakness

Mr. Ahmed said Filipino employees’ weakness in these subjects give them less opportunities to upgrade their skills and get a promotion.

"You issue 7,000 to 8,000 licenses every year. But when we get them and start to train them, some are not very knowledgeable in Math, Science and Physics," Mr. Ahmed said in an interview following IMEC’s meeting last week.

"There is still a lot to do to improve the primary level education and basic education," he added.

IMEC Philippine Representative Michael J. Estaniel agreed that these are indeed the areas that the government needs to work on.

"These are our areas of deficiency, consistent with what the Department of Education and the Commission on Higher Education are saying," Mr. Estaniel said.

"We need to produce better graduates who are ready to do work," he stressed.

"There are more and more ships coming out of the shipyards and there are not enough qualified employees to man them," he noted.

Education officials were not available to comment yesterday.

Aside from the lack of intellectually qualified employees, Mr. Estaniel noted that many Filipino seafarers are also aging and some are no longer physically suited for the hard labor on board marine vessels.

Citing the latest data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency, Mr. Estaniel said there are 500,000 licensed seafarers in the country and only about 350,000 are deployed.

"The Philippine contingent is the biggest in IMEC, followed by the Indians. We still need to fill in about 20,000 vacancies," Mr. Estaniel said.

To help fill the gap, IMEC launched the third cadet program for 50 maritime students at the University of Cebu.

"We have a lot of maritime students, but there is a lack of competent maritime officers. Hopefully, the cadet program will help fill this gap," Mr. Estaniel said. — Anna Barbara L. Lorenzo, BusinessWorld

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