MANILA, Philippines – The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) plans to implement its “enhanced” curriculum for maritime students in “the coming school year” to address the deficiencies in maritime education flagged by the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA). 

CHED Chairperson Prospero “Popoy” De Vera said in a Headstart interview on ANC on Thursday, April 13, that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. gave CHED instructions to implement action steps immediately following the European Union’s (EU) decision to continue recognizing certificates for seafarers issued by the Philippines.

“We have an enhanced curriculum that we have developed together with MARINA (Maritime Industry Authority) and the maritime education that addresses the observations previously given to CHED… That new enhanced curriculum will be implemented this coming school year,” said De Vera.

Some of the deficiencies the EMSA flagged before the EU made its decision were on training, education, monitoring, and availability and use of training facilities.

“We now have to do a lot of training, capacity building for faculty members who will be the ones to implement that curriculum, and we have to develop very good monitoring and evaluation tools so that we can assess whether the expected knowledge, skills, and competencies that the student must get are actually measured, are actually monitored all throughout their life as students until they become seafarers,” he said.

De Vera said the CHED promised EMSA that it would monitor a minimum of 30 institutions a year. He added that currently, there are 83 maritime institutions throughout the country. 

Challenges

De Vera admitted that it remains challenging for maritime institutions to hire experienced faculty due to the high salaries of seafarers abroad. Maritime institutions have to be innovative to ensure quality instructors, he added.

He cited the example of Palompon Institute of Technology in Leyte, dubbed one of the best maritime education institutions, which has a “long-time” agreement with the Dutch government.

“They have the benefit of being able to harness professionals and teachers coming from the Netherlands. They get a lot of updated and state-of-the-art equipment from the Netherlands so they are able to produce very good graduates,” De Vera said.

While the institution benefits from the provided advanced equipment, this comes with a caveat where the top 60% of their graduates may only be hired by Dutch ships, while the remaining 40% are open for recruitment to ships with other flags. 

De Vera said that CHED and the Philippine Coast Guard have signed an agreement to harness their personnel to help with the monitoring of shipboard training. He added that CHED and MARINA are in need of more assistance and technical evaluators due to their limited manpower. 

The Philippines remains as one of the top producers of seafarers in the world. In the announcement of the EU’s decision to continue recognizing Filipino seafarers’ certificates, EU Commissioner for Transport Adina Vălean said that it would continue supporting the country’s seafarers through technical support. – Katharina Isabel Angeles/Rappler.com

Katharina Isabel Angeles is a Rappler volunteer studying in Ateneo De Manila University. This article was done under the supervision of Rappler staff and her copy was vetted by editors.