Human Resource Development: Maritime Education and Training in Bangladesh

A Thesis Defense

In partial fulfillment of therequirements for the Degree ofMaster Shipping & Transport

STC-NMU, RotterdamOctober 28, 2009

13:30 hrs

Ahamedul Karim Chowdhury

Supervisor : Mr. Erik Hietbrink ,MSc. Chairman, Board of Directors, STC-Group

Outline

• Introduction• Problem statements and research questions• Overview of Research Methodology• Specific objective of the study• Review of literature and theoretical framework • Current Scenarios of MET structure in Bangladesh, India & Vietnam• Perception survey & Test of hypotheses• Findings from perception survey• Identified causes based upon respondent’s perception• Approach to solve the problem based upon respondent’s perception• Recommendations• Conclusion

Problem statements & research questions

Maritime Education and Training (MET) has not yet been considered as a potential tool of HRD in Bangladesh since long time although there was an enormous potentialities and global demand of competent seafarers exist.

1. What is the significance of state role and effect of state initiatives in MET and maritime cluster?

2. What are the possibilities, potentialities and possible impacts of establishing joint venture MET institute and create competitive factors?

3. Are there any potentialities of MET institutes in Bangladesh?

4. What are the causes of underdevelopment of MET in Bangladesh?

5. What are the steps to be taken to remove causes and hurdles against development of MET? 

Overview of Research Methodology

Descriptive analysis

Review of literatures

Review of legal bases

Review of facts & documents

Quantitative&

qualitative analysis

Overview, recommendations and conclusion

Quantitative analysis,

Hypotheses testing &Thematic analysis

Interview for

perception survey

Review of country reports

Specific objectives of the study

• To investigate the existing situation of MET in Bangladesh.

• To asses state role in development of Maritime sector including MET and the possibilities to establish a unique and accredited MET Institute in Bangladesh with or without partnership and its impacts.

• To explore the causes of the stagnancy and sluggish growth of Maritime Education and Training in Bangladesh during last few decades and to formulate recommendations to remove cause based on a perception survey and analysis through interviewing.

Summary of theoretical framework and literature review

• Education and training are the basic tools for HRD.

• Human resource development is a prime responsibility of a state.

• Bangladesh also has a constitutional binding for developing its human resource.

• The Government's education policy aims at poverty alleviation and improving the productive capacity of the workforce.

• In Bangladesh, structures of polytechnic, vocational and technical trainings remain underutilized and problematic.

• Bangladesh has become considerably dependent on the foreign remittance of expatriate to maintain its foreign exchange reserve.

• Under the current situation, producing and supply of competent maritime officers in the global market through MET can play a vital role to meet the current demand of employment and foreign exchange.

Current Scenarios of MET structure in Bangladesh

• Maritime activities are mainly divided into two sectors. – Sea-going ships operating in international water including near coastal and deep sea area

– Other is for small ships operating in Inland waterways.

• The Department of Shipping (DOS) is responsible for supervising and monitoring the requisite International Standard of the Public and Private Sector Maritime Institutes .

• There are five Government and four Private Maritime Training Institutions offering pre-sea and post-sea maritime courses in different grades and areas respectively. Government owned Maritime Institutes in Bangladesh are:

1. Marine Academy, Chittagong.

2. National Maritime Institute (former Seamen’s Training Centre), Chittagong.

3. Marine Fisheries Academy, Chittagong.

4. Bangladesh Institute of Marine Technology, Dhaka.

5. Deck Personnel Training Centre, Dhaka.

• The Private Maritime Training Institutes in Bangladesh are:1. Maritime Institute of Science and Technology (MIST), Dhaka/Chittagong.

2. Bangladesh Maritime Training Institute (BMTI), Dhaka/Chittagong.

3. International Institute of Maritime Technology (IIMT), Dhaka/Chittagong.

4. MAS Maritime Academy (MMA), Dhaka

Currents scenarios of MET structure in India

• The Indian Maritime Education and Training (MET) System is a complicated so-called “sandwich” system based on the (old) UK system.

• For Marine Engineers there are 11 different “streams” and for Deck Officers 3.

• Maritime education and training courses for officers in India can be divided into 5 categories:

– Pre-sea training to preparatory courses for watch keeping certificates of competency,

– Post-sea training to preparatory course for examinations of management level certificates of competency,

– STCW’95 courses,

– so called “upgrade courses” (updating and refresher) and

– Non-mandatory additional courses.

• Most training institutes offer a combination of 2 or more categories above.

• Indian registered fleet counts about 650 vessels represent about 8 million GT.

• India is the sixth largest crew supplying nation in the world.

• The total number of STCW’95 issued Certificates of Competence (CoC) per May 2005 is almost 110,000.

• At this moment India has 116 MET institutes for both officers and ratings .

Current scenarios of MET structure in Vietnam

• Vietnam is a maritime country having

– major river systems

– major seaports with an enormous hinterland of

– 3,000 km coastline.

• VINAMARINE: The Vietnam Maritime Bureau is the only maritime administration and statutory agency in Vietnam

• VINALINES : a largest state-owned shipping conglomerate in shipping business operation in Vietnam; both are under the Ministry of Transport and Communication.

• VIMARU: Vietnam Maritime University is a state-owned institution in Vietnam. The university established relationships with a number of maritime universities and institutions worldwide and international organizations especially with those in Japan and Korea.

• UT-HCMC: University of Transport in Ho Chi Minh established in 2001now managed by Ministry of Transport. Navigation faculty and Marine Engineering faculty are the solid strengths of this University. UT-HCMC has achieved considerable interest and investment in a block of the maritime training labs satisfying IMO standards. About 400 navigation students come out as graduate from this university every year and they are employed in domestic and foreign sea-going vessels.

MET in India and Vietnam: Comparing with MET structure in Bangladesh

• Bangladesh MET structure is far behind than India and Vietnam.

• India is a big country. Therefore it’s quite natural that Bangladesh may lag behind India in terms of size of MET structure. But unfortunately in terms of quality like legal framework, upgradation of courses,standard of maritime administration and private participation in MET institute Bangladesh falls behind India.

• In terms of potentilities and possibilities, Bangladesh could be a better country for MET development than Vietnam. Available students having science background with good english language skill could be an advantage for flourishing maritime education.

• But due to ignorance, lack of awareness, weak MET structure and lack of international cooperation and assistance Bangladesh couldnot avail this opportunity yet.

• Bangladesh now needs to go a long way in MET development to reach to the level of Vietnam and India.

Perception survey and hypotheses of the study1. Lack of sufficient national fleet affected the growth of the country as a maritime nation

and has enormous negative influence on fostering MET in Bangladesh. 2. Responsibility of MET being given to DOS & MOS without any specific directives and

attention, the sector has become sterile resulting in failure to develop & expand maritime education in vocational as well as tertiary level compared to other formal educational institution of Bangladesh.

3. Lack of political ambitions and awareness of the politicians, civil society, and government regarding ongoing trends in MET in the world are the main causes of underdevelopment of MET structure in Bangladesh.

4. The regulatory role of DOS itself doesn’t facilitate rather impede the growth and development of MET in vocational as well as in tertiary level education in Bangladesh.

5. Lack of publicity, awareness about the ongoing global trend in ship manning and lack of awareness campaigns are the other reasons for the underdeveloped situation in MET structure of Bangladesh.

6. Lack of strong European partnership in MET system has slowed down the development and growth of MET in Bangladesh.

Result of hypothesis testing at a glance

Number of hypothesis

Numbers of question attributed

Parameter (50% of highest possible score)

Average mean value

Result

H1 7 17.5 15.99 rejected

H2 6 15 19.09 accepted

H3 8 20 30.56 accepted

H4 9 22.5 28.15 accepted

H5 2 5 6.9 accepted

H6 4 10 12.26 accepted

Results of qualitative (thematic) analysis

• Impact of ever decreasing national fleet in Bangladesh after independence.

• Bureaucratic hurdles in policy level and administrative dilemma for MET

• Possibility to establish a Maritime University in Bangladesh

• Role of politicians and civil society for maritime cluster including MET

• Lack of awareness about MET and maritime cluster

• Elimination of colonial mindset and a revolutionary step to develop MET

• Reducing barriers like VISA and security check harassment for Bangladeshi seafarers.

Identified causes based on respondents’ perception

1. Political failure to recognize the importance of MET

2. Lack of national maritime policy and sustainable guidelines.

3. Failure of DOS to foresee the global demand of seafarers and take timely initiatives.

4. Lack of awareness in politician, civil society and young students about the significance of MET.

5. Failure to establish international relationship and industrial linkage with international shipping company, Ship Management Company and Manning agents.

6. Bureaucratic barrier in proactive maritime administration in Bangladesh.

7. Failure to establish joint ventured competency based and international standard MET institute with a EU partners.

8. Political failure to understand the importance of own knowledge bank for the sustainable development of maritime cluster.

Recommendations based on respondents’ perception

In response to final question in questionnaire respondents made some recommendations in order to develop MET in Bangladesh.

These are;

• The importance of maritime sectors should be a national agenda

• A special wing can be developed for research and development in maritime sectors.

• The national consensus especially among the political parties should be developed for promoting MET and for a development plan for maritime sector in Bangladesh.

• Private sectors, particularly, foreign-local partnership’s involvement to establish MET institutes are the only way to improve MET in Bangladesh.

• Government should remove all hurdles in policy level to make it easy.

• More awareness at policy level is needed.

• Maritime sector should be unleashed from the grip of DOS.

• Monitoring is required since if we allow institutes to be self regulated

• MET institutions should be allowed to be innovative and be a business concern for their survival.

Recommendations

In order to remove stagnancy and sluggish growth of MET in Bangladesh a high level task force can be constituted with maritime experts, transportation experts and HRD experts to formulate a policy in national level.

To remove hurdles in policy level as well as to remove identified causes or factors steps can be taken ;

• Political consensus on development of maritime cluster including MET.

• A comprehensive maritime policy including MET structure development.

• Organizational reform of DOS to unleash MET sector form their grip or establishment of an independent maritime commission in place of DOS.

• Incentive packages for private participation in MET institute.

• Joint venture MET institute with a right EU partner under PPP.

• Awareness campaign about significance and potentialities of MET in Bangladesh.

• Diplomatic initiatives to reduce barriers like VISA and security check harassment for Bangladeshi seafarers.

• Conversion of infrastructure of some Polytechnic institutes and TTC into MET institutes under PPP.

• PPP for MET institute in joint venture and in private sector.

Conclusions• The quality of education and training should be considered as the highest political priority.

• Bangladesh, a country with huge population, could not avail the opportunity of global shortage of competent maritime officers.

• State initiatives

• HRD, technology transfer and knowledge transfer since these sectors couldn’t prove them yet as profitable and attractive as other business sectors in Bangladesh.

• Development of knowledge infrastructure for shipping, logistics and transport sectors can give a very visible competitive edge to a country.

• Establishment of a MET institute as an own knowledge bank with a right EU partner will be able to create enormous impact to the society as well as to the economy.

• It will also create competitive advantage on various issues such as;– shipping,

– logistics,

– supply chain management,

– ship building,

– ship breaking,

– knowledge transfer,

– technology transfer,

– environment protection,

– port governance reform,

– maritime law and disputes settlement.

Conclusions

• Ignorance

• Lack of political ambition ,

• Failure to recognize MET

• Unawareness of Politicians, Bureaucrats and Civil

• Failure to have industrial linkages and international relations.

• Lack of proactive maritime administration.

• Bureaucratic hurdles in policy level and also administrative dilemma for MET.

• Lack of comprehensive maritime policy

• As it is discussed on the part of qualitative analysis that

– political consensus, building a legal framework,

– Formulation of a comprehensive maritime policy,

– Incentive packages for private entrepreneurship in MET,

– Joint venture institute with a renowned EU partner under Public-Private Partnership (PPP)

– Organizational reform of Department of Shipping (DOS) to unleash MET sector from their grip

– Establishment of higher maritime training institutions are the major steps that can be taken for removal of hurdles in policy level and for the development of MET in Bangladesh.

• The study highlighted the overall importance of contribution of MET to HRD as well as to the creation of competitive factors for maritime cluster in Bangladesh.

Suggestions for further research

A comprehensive feasibility study with economic analysis and financial modeling to establish a unique and an accredited MET institute or a maritime university in Bangladesh with or without partnership can be carried out.

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