In view of the above background and due to the global nature of the
marine profession, there is an urgent need to bridge the huge gap between the levels and
quality of marine training institutes worldwide.
・Since the IMO is accomplishing great steps towards the unification
of maritime education and training approaches of qualifying sea personnel through the
implementation of the STCW Convention of 1978, and the revised STCW of 1995, it is both
feasible and justifiable to consider the IMO Model Courses as the sound baseline towards
the unification of marine training syllabuses and standards on an international level. In
this context, one effective and significant harmonized element in maritime education and
training, i.e. assessment and/or examination, is still missing as seen in the diversity of
examination and/or assessment approaches. This -in itself- will hinder the process of
unification and will keep the situation as it is.
Review Of Current Assessment Approaches
Examinations are seen as the criteria and the tool for assessing
sea-going education and training. Consequently, if the assessment is valid and reliable,
the assessment of educational and training standards is also valid, reliable and true.
In written exams; the types of questions used are "Essay, Problem
Solving, Situational and Multiple Choice" (Table (1)).
It is necessary to organize and set a balanced question paper as
regards the level of difficulty and the period of time allocated to answers. Any test or
exam cannot be considered significant for a given course if the whole bulk of questions
were to test marginal or peripheral or irrelevant issues, the key issue is the main
objectives of teaching the course.
Question papers should have the following determinants:
1. To measure the candidate's absorption of the theoretical aspects of
the topic.
