Education and Research at Maritime Safety Academy
as an administrative organ
- Mainly on Maintaining a Maritime Traffic Safety -
Akira Nagasawa
Maritime Safety Academy, Japan
ABSTRACT
Maritime Safety Agency that is belonging to the Ministry of Transport
of Japan has a lot of task to maintain public order and safety at sea: the police
authority, search and rescue, disaster prevention, anti-pollution, hydrography,
navigational aids and so on. To train up officers who are able to perform these various
duties, Maritime Safety Academy was established in 1951.
In this paper, after an introduction of a brief outline of this
academy, progress of the researches concerning with maintaining maritime traffic safety
was particularly described because of the heaviest maritime traffics around Japan. And
then, since the results of these researches could be applied to a latest integrated
navigational system as a module to evaluate traffic environment around an own-ship, the
result of a questionnaire survey about the relation between new technology and classical
subjects like a celestial navigation was introduced to be helpful to us in discussing what
a future curriculum should be.
After the World War II, the sea around Japan was dark because of
rampant smuggling, stowaways, floating mines and loosing many light houses or beacons. In
1948, the Maritime Safety Agency was established for the purpose of maintain public order
and safety at sea. To perform various duties, officers were requested be well grounded in
not only maritime skill but also knowledge of legal. Then, Maritime Safety Academy was
established as a special institution under the direct control of Maritime Safety Agency.
So, cadets are fated to learn a lot of subjects to serve the interests
of society and to meet the expectations of the people. An outline of the educational
system throughout the four and half years is shown in Fig. 1 and cadets should obtain over
a hundred fifty credits in this term; one credit is equivalent to a lecture of fifteen
hours.
To meet a demand of education and researches to maintain the safety at
sea, the faculty are divided into eighteen sections. In particular, it is distinctive that
some sections were made up from a point of view to correspond with organization of the
Headquarters in order to give a reply to a practical problem: applying a regulation,
finding a cause of a
