Marine Certification
There are various kinds of jobs for ship officers and crew, which require specialized marine certification and education. This is obvious since the job roles of sailors can be mainly be grouped into either marine engineers or navigating officers at the higher end, whilst there are a variety of job posts at other ranks as well, some of them being cooks, hair dressers, event managers, beauticians, health care experts to name a few. It also depends on the type of vessel under consideration.
For example a normal commercial cargo carrier would normally have the usual quota of marine engineers, navigating officers and related crew; whilst a cruise liner would also have lots of other staff since they carry passengers instead of cargo.
Types of Marine Certifications
There are several different paths for career progression in merchant navy ships and depends on one’s entry level qualification and interest, as to which path is best suited for him or her. We will take up this matter in detail and know about the various certifications and courses available to students and aspirants.
Even after the initial entry there are a series of exams which must be cleared in succession in order to progress along the career path. As far as the two main departments on a ship are concerned, they are the navigation and engineering wings. These are headed by the Master/Captain and the Chief Engineer respectively.
The marine certification system of ships is well structured and is governed by various regulations such as the STCW or the Standards of Training, Certification & Watchkeeping. We will also learn about these standards and the regulating bodies, classification societies in due course of time.
Apart from the main certifications there are lots and lots of short courses which are compulsory for seafarers during various phases of their career. These are also known as STCW courses which include a long list of courses such as basic first aid training, basic fire fighting, advanced fire fighting, PSSR, tanker familiarization and so forth. Needless to repeat, these will also be listed in detail including their content, places where they can be done and other details regarding them.
Guidance for Aspirants
Another useful feature of this marine certification and education section will be to guide aspiring candidates to join various courses and later on help them with getting maritime jobs. It has been the personal experience of the website owner that many aspirants cannot join this lucrative career simply because enough information is not available for students or their parents. So some people try to take advantage of this lack of knowledge and information by misguiding aspirants for their own selfish ends. It would be the endeavor of this website to put the aspirants in the right direction without taking any fee in return for the advice.
One good college I can suggest is the South Tyneside College, UK which prepares students for different marine certifications for the Maritime and Coastguard Agency in the United Kingdom
Later on, as the website develops over a period of time, a provision would be made for you to leave your comments/suggestions for queries/improvement.
Just take a look at the picture below which shows some students of a marine training institute preparing for their future job roles on real ships.
Marine Certification and Education,
