Annual General Assembly 2004 - Tasmania

Session 1B

Advanced Learning Solutions For Further Career Development And Enhancement Of Seagoing Professionals

Malek Pourzanjani, PhD
Professor of Maritime Education and Training, WMU
mp@wmu.se

Takeshi Nakazawa, PhD
Professor of Maritime Technology, WMU
tn@wmu.se

ABSTRACT

MET Institutions have experienced major changes in their structure, and provision of services over the past three decades. These changes have come about partly due to national and international requirements concerned with the standards of competence of seafarers (e.g. STCW), and partly due to financial regimes under which these institutions are funded, forcing them to diversify into other areas and activities, such as consultancy, research, and shore based training programmes.

Today's seafarer is also markedly different to those who went to sea some 20 or 30 years ago. The differences in seafarers' attitude and approach to a seafaring career manifest themselves in a desire to spend less time at sea, and treat this as a stepping stone in their working life career. This is definitely true for developed nations, and becoming more and more the norm, even for the developing countries.

With above status in mind one can argue, that MET Institutions, and in particular the IAMU member Universities due to their superior standing and level of provision, have an excellent opportunity to provide a whole range of courses, and components of courses, which can be undertaken by seafarers to prepare them for their next stage of career.

Distance learning and web-based courses are now commonplace in many Higher Education institutions, and that technology can be easily transferred to the MET institutions. This paper will discuss some of the issues involved in web-based and distance learning, and use a recently completed distance-learning project, undertaken by the WMU for the IMO, to demonstrate some of the possibilities in this area.

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