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The International Maritime Organisation in collaboration with the Government of Singapore is conducting a regional training course for instructors from August 25 to September 5, 2003.

Representatives from the Asia sub region namely, Bangladesh, Brunei, India, Indonesia, Iran, Myanmar, Pakistan, China, Philippines, Maldives, Sri Lanka and Vietnam are participating in the program.

This training course is based on instructors in the Maritime Training institutes of those countries, in order to upgrade the quality of seafarers inter region.

Ranjith Maligaspe, Secretary, Ministry of Port Development and Shipping the chief guest at the opening ceremony held at the CINEC Maritime Campus at Malabe said: "We all know that the rootcause of most maritime accidents is attributed to human error. To minimise this phenomenon it is required to deal with the origin of the cause. That is to man merchant ships with appropriately well- trained and qualified personnel.

This need has been addressed by the STCW 1978 Convention and its amendments. With the introduction of the 1995 amendments of the STCW Convention, maritime training and certification activities have greatly increased globally and the need to have trained maritime instructors has become a necessity. I believe that the International Maritime Organisation has identified this need and doing their utmost to address it while discharging their duty as the sole guardian of global maritime activities, Maligaspe said. Teaching or making others understand is not an easy task. It could be very exhaustive as one should make a tremendous effort to make others understand within a limited period of time.

Therefore, trainers should learn the most effective and modern methods and techniques to impart their knowledge to others successfully, he said.

Sri Lanka became a party to STCW 1978 convention in 1987 and gained entry into the first list of countries giving full and complete effect to the STCW 1995 amendments which was released in 2000.

As an IMO member state and a party to the STCW convention, we are doing our best to execute the true essence of this convention and therefore, realise the importance of training our maritime trainers to achieve effective results, he said.

Presently we have six approved maritime training institutes in Sri Lanka conducting courses ranging from Ratings up to Master and Chief Engineer levels and we are quite pleased with the contribution they make to the Sri Lankan seafarers and, as a whole, to Sri Lanka society.

Statistics indicate that Sri Lanka has around 12,000 active seafarers as at present, he said.

This figure comprises of seafarers in the officer grades as well as other grades.

The seafarers in the officer grades certificated by the Maritime Administration of Sri Lanka are in high demand throughout the world. I am informed that even our national career is finding it difficult to obtain the services of seafarers in the officer grades certificated by us due to the high demand for them by foreign companies, he said.

One of the principal modes by which the government of Sri Lanka hopes to overcome this situation is to ensure that these seafarers are marketable internationally based on good training and internationally acceptable certification. We have to train them in terms of internationally accepted standards, he said.

In other words, Sri Lanka hopes to ensure that its seafarers at officer grades as well as lower grades more than satisfies the training and certification needs spelt out by the STCW Convention as amended in 1995. This training course sponsored by the IMO will assist to ensure that the instructors of the Maritime Training Institutes in this region are well versed with the internationally accepted standards in the field of education, he said.

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