Strategic Curriculum in the Faculty of Maritime Sciences, Kobe University aiming at Fostering and Enhancing the Motivation toward Maritime Science.

Annual General Assembly 2005 - Malmö

Section 3

Strategic Curriculum in the Faculty of Maritime Sciences, Kobe University aiming at Fostering and Enhancing the Motivation toward Maritime Science.

Toshimichi FUKUOKA
Faculty of Maritime Sciences, Kobe University, Japan

ABSTRACT

In Japan, maritime related organizations of education are currently facing a difficult situation in acquiring potential young people who would shoulder the responsibility for the maritime society in the near future. The Faculty of Maritime Sciences, Kobe University has started using a new curriculum since the first semester in 2004. A number of subjects provided in one and half year after the enrolment intend to give the motivation toward maritime science to the students who entered the Faculty without sufficient knowledge of on maritime science that meets the educational objectives of the Faculty. That is due mainly to the university admission system in Japan, i.e., high school students tend to select his or her university based on the score of the common test conducted annually by the Government. In this paper, a strategic curriculum provided by our faculty is presented to show how the motivation and knowledge of maritime science could be fostered and enhanced in conjunction with a strategic admission system. Our curriculum in the first semester after the enrolment aims at entertaining students concerning the sea and ships using a high performance cruiser, cutters, etc., followed by teaching fundamentals and common sense in the maritime science field. Students learn those introductory subjects in one and half year. Then, they are given an opportunity to select their department to which they belong, among three departments of Maritime Technology Management, Marine Transportation Systems and Marine Engineering. As far as the Department of Maritime Technology Management is concerned, which has a primary roll of fostering seafarers, almost thirty percent of the students are enrolled through a recommendation based admission system in order to welcome students who have enough enthusiasm toward maritime science at the moment of entrance examination. The strategies introduced here would be a great help for other maritime education organizations where the number of applicants tends to decrease.

Keywords: Strategic Curriculum, Decrease of Young People, Package Admission System, Common Entrance Examination, Seafarer’s Certificate.