Reimaging maritime education and training using latest technologies

Abstract

The world is moving towards technological advancements and every industry is rapidly changing its approach. Thus, industry looks for more technically knowledgeable and analytically persons to adapt to the fast-changing world.(6) This revolutionized the higher education system across the world. The education system changes its traditional method of teaching to more practical based blended learning. Whereas, the maritime industry which used to take people at the age of 12 and train them at the ship for various works is also selecting their candidates with basic subject knowledge and analytical skills. Because at present the maritime education is more of traditional based theoretical learning. The maritime education course contents are designed in such a way that it should meet the minimum requirement of Standards of Training, Certification and Watch keeping for Seafarers (STCW) convention adopted by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) which were not been revised after 2010. The shipping companies are looking beyond this minimum requirement as the ship is automated and has more advanced machineries onboard the ship. The seafarers with more analytical and basic theoretical knowledge find it difficult to adapt them to the technologically advanced marine environment. The present students studying the maritime courses lack interest in studying the theoretical based traditional learning. Since the STCW conventions are under review, this paper discusses about the blended learning techniques which can be adopted to the course contents. The data has been collected using structured questionnaire from different set of people. The collected data was analyzed and validated using AMOS and SPSS software. The results shows that the blended learning techniques like Augmented reality and Virtual reality techniques considerably solves the problem. This technique also gives the student hands on training which will be more helpful when they are onboard.