Maritime schools belie "deficiencies"

CEBU, Philippines - While Cebu maritime schools see a negative effect if the imminent ban of Filipino seafarers on board European Union-registered ships will be implemented, they disagreed the deficient maritime education and training of institutions were the reason for the possible blacklist.

Dr. Victor Villaganas, Cebu Technological University’s vice president for academic affairs, said that CTU, University of the Visayas and the University of Cebu-Maritime Education Training Center are among the top performing schools when it comes to marine engineering and marine transportation in Cebu.

“So far, we have a good performance in terms of maritime training and education since we were not able to receive negative comments from the Commission on Higher Education and other certifying body,” Villaganas said.

“If the ban will push through, the whole country will be affected. Maayo gani kay gi-invite ang atong president with the parliament, wherein he will be presenting documents,” he added.

Dr. Wenceslao Quiros, UV’s Maritime Department course director, said that the ban will not affect the seafarers that much since there are countries hiring the services of our Filipino seafarers.

“It will affect the Filipino seafarers, but it’s just a small portion for seafarers because we have other countries, like Japan and the United States who get our services,” he said.

Villaganas agreed saying Europe is just one quarter for seafarers as there is also North America and South America.

“But to think Europe as a union, we could not take it for granted. Knowing that billions ang remittance sa atong maritime from that part of the world,” he said.

The Department of Foreign Affairs was informed by the European Commission’s Directorate General for Mobility and Transport, that it will not take any final action regarding the deficiencies the latter found in the country’s maritime education and training institutions until the later part of the year or early 2013.

Blaming poor maritime education as the reason for the imposition of the ban was strongly disagreed by Quiros.

“In terms of maritime education, I don’t think that it is the reason. Filipino seafarers are number one in terms of skills. Sa mga schools, naa’y uban gyud siguro nga wala naka-meet sa standard requirement because of the compliance but in UV this is not true,” he said.

“In terms of facilities, we have more than what is required by CHED. In fact, we are ISO-certified and last February of this year, we received a non-conformance assessment from the surveillance conducted by Det Norske Veritas,” he added.

“Being an ISO-certified school, we will not stop improving,” he said. UV will also be having another accreditation, the Philippine Association of Colleges and Universities Commission on Accreditation.

According to Villaganas, the country’s compliance with the 1987 International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for seafarers and the standards in the International Maritime Organization must be strictly implemented.

“I suggest to our president that we should submit all the documents which proved that we were able to comply with the STCW requirements. I’m positive that we will be able to pass the standards, for decades, CTU produces quality graduates in our maritime program,” he said.

The DG-MOVE will send another audit mission to the Philippines. However, this next audit mission will reportedly be the European Maritime Safety Agency’s final mission to the Philippines and will focus on assessing individual maritime schools and training institutions’ compliance with STCW standards. — /BRP (FREEMAN)