海员职业
2014.07.01
下面转载国际船务新闻 6月30日报导提及海员职业具有挑战和
报偿牲的.
Seafarer: A challenging but rewarding profession
International Shipping News 30/06/2014
Being a seafarer pays so much more than if one were a management trainee in a multinational company, which only hires graduates of UP, Ateneo and La Salle.
Chief Mate Bienvenido Arevalo Jr., dean of Lyceum International Maritime Academy (LIMA) in Batangas, recalls his first year as a trainee of a shipping company.
“I spent my first 13 months in land doing errands like cleaning cars and making coffee. It was actually very good training for me,” says Arevalo, who graduated from Lima in 1995.
He has had a rewarding career as a seafarer, assuring a solid future for himself and his family. He, like other LIMA alumni, work at the Batangas campus when they are on land (seafarers are normally at sea for only four to six months).
About 30 percent of the world’s seafarers are Filipinos, who can be found in ships like Bulk Carrier, Passenger, Container, Tanker, Oil/Product Tanker, Chemical Tanker, General Cargo, Pure Car Carrier, Tugboat and Gas Tanker. There are more Filipino seafarers than any other race. In 2010, the Department of Labor and Employment said around 229,000 Filipino seamen were on board merchant shipping vessels around the world at any given time.
“Filipinos are very much in demand in the maritime industry,” says Lyceum of the Philippines-Maritime Training Center director Myrna Clemino.
LIMA is the first maritime school to be ISO 9001:2008 certified and rated compliant with STCW ‘95. It offers Bachelor of Science degrees in Marine Transportation and Marine Engineering
The four-year programs are designed to produce competent seafarers. The Marine Transportation course aims “to produce deck ratings who will eventually become deck officers who are highly trained, well-disciplined and responsive to the demands of technological advancements in shipboard operations, shipping management, cargo handling, ship propulsion for a sound and safe navigation of the riding public so as to ensure safety of goods and properties onboard the ships.” The Marine Engineering curriculum, on the other hand, “is focused in having Engine ratings and officers who are well-prepared for shipboard operations.”
The LIMA campus used to be located at Lyceum of the Philippines University’s main campus in Intramuros, Manila before it moved to the present campus in Cuta, Calatagan, Batangas in 1998.
The academy has over 200 “linkages” with shipping companies and memorandum of agreements with a number of these firms to help their graduates get placements as apprentices in their fourth year in school and, eventually, jobs when they graduate.
LIMA is the first and only maritime school in the Philippines to use the Kongsberg Console, a maritime simulator. Lyceum of the Philippines University invested about P50 million for the system, which mimics actual ship engine and bridge conditions.
“Our goal is to prepare our graduates mentally, physically and emotionally for the rigors of being a seafarer and this is one way of giving them an edge,” explains Arevalo, as he shows us how the engine simulation room and the bridge simulator can work hand-in-hand to give students the actual experience of being on a ship.
LIMA presently has 2,300 enrollees, over 300 of them from Nigeria. Many of the academy’s graduates have placed in the top 10 of board exams, with a passing rate of 100 percent for Marine Engineers and above the national passing rate for Marine Deck Officers.
Arevalo and Clemino admit it takes a certain degree of fortitude to be a seafarer.
“You have to deal with being apart from your family and sometimes not seeing land for over two weeks. That can take its toll on anyone but this is why we prepare our students,” says Clemino
“But the benefits outweigh the challenges and disadvantages,” says Arevalo. “Seafarers are well paid and the job offers many benefits.”
Rights of seafarers are protected by the international conventions. The International Maritime Organisation is the United Nations agency responsible for developing international regulation for the shipping industry. This includes measures to deal with safety, the environment, technical co-operation, legal issues and security. When ships are in dangerous waters, for instance, seafarers’ salaries are doubled and security personnel trained in combat man the ships. Filipino seafarers are not as highly paid as their European counterparts yet but the situation has improved vastly.
The 94th International Labour Conference (Maritime) adopted the Maritime Labour Convention, 2006, sets out the conditions for decent work in the increasingly globalized maritime sector.
The convention sets minimum requirements for seafarers to work on a ship and contains provisions on conditions of employment, hours of work and rest, accommodation, recreational facilities, food and catering, health protection, medical care, welfare and social security protection. Compliance and enforcement are secured through onboard and onshore complaint procedures for seafarers,and through provisions regarding shipowners’ and shipmasters’ supervision of conditions on their ships, flag states’ jurisdiction and control over their ships, and port state inspection of foreign ships.
The popularity of the profession has also increased through the years as more and more Filipino families become “marinated,” a term seafarers use to refer to people who have family members in the maritime industry.
“Children of seafarers want to enter the industry, too, because they have seen how their father has provided well for the family. We have seen our enrollment rate rise through the years,” says Arevalo.
Source: Manila Standard
