Some maritime experts on Friday advocated for the inclusion of on-ship and post-ship training for Nigerian cadet seafarers before issuing them certificate of competence.
The experts, who spoke with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos, attributed the difficulty being experienced by Nigerian-trained seafarers in gaining employment with international sailing ships to the misgivings ships owners had on their training.
Ms Iroghane Obuofaribo, an Off Manager with Starz Shipping, said that international vessel owners were aware of the inadequacies of the training given to Nigerian cadet seafarers and found it difficult to employ them.
“Even we (indigenous) companies, trying to employ some of them, are not finding it easy with them because there are some basic things you expect someone with sea competence certificate to do onboard that they are completely ignorant of.
“Those things are the knowledge they are expected to have acquired while on-ship and post-ship training, but are lacking in their course outlines. So, in order to beef-up their undoing, companies spend fortunes in retraining them, ” she said.
According to her, many international companies know about this competence gap in the Nigerian-trained cadet seafarers and therefore, tend to prefer others with training edge.
Mr Ahmed Tijjani-Ramalan, the Vice President of Nigerian Chamber of Shipping Governing Council Board, said that Nigeria could join in the export of seafarers to other countries if the country had gotten its training scheme right.
Tijjani-Ramalan expressed the regret at the high numbers of the nation’s unemployed seafarers and called on maritime training institutions to remodel their training programme.
He also stressed the need for the training institutions to patner with shipping firms to give the cadets the industry-required competence.
Tijjani-Ramalan said that both the on-ship and post-ship training should be infused into the scheme of work for cadets to make them more attractive to industry players. (NAN)
