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MARITIME council has started accrediting training
centers which will offer management level courses to
seafarers, making it more prohibitive for Filipino
sailors to secure licenses to work onboard foreign
vessels.
In a
Friday briefing, Teresita T. Laurel, the Maritime
Training Council’s acting executive director, told
reporters that the agency has already accredited at
least eight training centers offering the said courses.
She added that some 18 applications remain pending with
the agency, which is subsumed under the labor
department. A total of 54 such centers are expected to
be accredited by the council.
With the
slew of newly-accredited training centers, local
seafarers will be required to take additional management
level courses and therefore pay more money and spend
more time for these subjects. The new rules may also
limit the country’s chances in providing much-needed
labor for international vessels.
Sailors
who will take up the course will have to shell out
school fees that range from P42,000 for marine deck
course to P52,000 for marine engine course, which could
last anywhere between six to eight weeks.
Among
the facilities which initially secured approval to offer
the said courses include the industry’s biggest such as
Philippine Japan Manning Consultative Council, the
Magsaysay Group and the Norwegian Training Center.
“Some of
these groups and some shipping firms offer to give the
training for free to make the courses easier to take for
the seafarers,” Laurel said.
The
council, which has been working on the courses for deck
and engine vessel workers for the past seven years,
insisted that the courses should be required so as not
to draw flak from the international community. Filipino
sailors are the single biggest nation bloc of seafarers
in the world, accounting for at least 25 percent of the
total.
Laurel
said that the courses are the country’s way of
compliance to the requirements under the Standards of
Training, Certification and Watchkeeping Convention as
amended in 1995, such as Regulations II/2 for deck and
III/2 for engine officers.
The said
regulations provide that before an operational level
officer could be issued a certificate of competency,
they must have completed an approved education and
training.
“[The
courses] have undergone diligent studies and had been
subjected to various technical consultations and
discussion with stakeholders. We made the necessary
adjustments of the model courses, resulting in drastic
reduction of the course duration without sacrificing the
course contents,” Laurel said.
As a
result, the council has been under heavy criticism
because of these new requirements, viewed by many as an
additional burden on seafarers.
The
council, a consultative agency under the Department of
Labor and Employment, includes representative from the
Maritime Industry Authority, Philippine Coast Guard,
Commission on Higher Education, Philippine Overseas
Employment Administration, Overseas Workers Welfare
Administration, Professional Regulations Commission,
Office of the President, Department of Foreign Affairs
and a private sector representative, currently held by
the Associated Marine Officers’ and Seamen’s Union of
the Philippines. |
