Search

United Nations Organization and its specialized agencies promoted gender equality and women employment in the Maritime industry as their main goal. Maritime Education and Training institutions are an integral part of this process. However, the primary role is given to ship owners and their manning agents around the World. Nikola Vaptsarov Naval Academy is a part of this big process of the general change in human thinking regarding the acceptance of women on board of merchant ships. The study in the article exposes the change of the process of admittance and graduation of women in the Academy. In this research, the method of interview is used to study the attitudes of female candidates in the Academy. The paper opens the door for the next research that need to be made in the recruitment market in order to find reasons for skepticism for women on board and how to break the conservative way of thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Going back to the beginning of 90-ies of last century before the present STCW-78/95 Convention was established the shipping industry relied on Maritime Education and Training Institutions for welleducated and trained seafarers. Every shipowner simply employed seafarers that his ships needed and the relevant Minimum Safe Manning Certificate required. Generally speaking MET Institutions were the only Institutions responsible for initial and following education and training of seafarers. The last decade in the shipping industry has been marked by plenty changes and quick development in different directions. One of the directions is improving the quality of seafarer's education and training, knowledge and skills as well. The obligatory competences in STCW-78/95 Convention are not enough for shipowners and they try to extend the education process outside the Convention's requirements and recommendations. It is a well known and more and more spread practice for Shipowners to organize and perform meetings with officers and engineers working on board their vessels. Such meetings get publicity as Fleet Officer's Meetings (FOM) or Fleet Officer's Seminars (FOS). The meetings or seminars are performed at least on a yearly basis but it is the Owner's decision to establish the agenda and the scope of the topics. The usefulness of the above mentioned events is visible enough and it is easy to understand that the applied efforts are not time wasted. The question is whether the companies can perform such kind of training and whether their lecturers and instructors, who are usually part of the office staff, are ready to deliver their experience at an acceptable level. It has to be highlighted that it is not a rule that good professionals as Masters and Engineers are always good lecturers and trainers. This article describes the summary results of the authors' experience in participating as a fleet officer and as an assessor in fleet officers' seminars. The article makes a SWAT analysis of such events and shares experience as a conclusion. The author gives his personal collaboration to the lifelong learning process in the shipping industry. The article makes an attempt to open the door to the co-operation between the shipping industry and MET Institutions at a higher level after the seafarers' graduation in their MET Institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]