affect Maritime Education and Training (MET) and shipping industries.
In the European Union, a three-year project for restoring of the
shipping and MET in Europe, the so called Harmonization of Europe MET Schemes project (1)
started in 1995. At the Technical Co-operation Committee - 39th session; IMO Egypt
proposed the agenda, item 10. This proposal can help to upgrade the quality of seafarers
and total operational costs of facilities and teaching staff in Africa (2).
According to the BINICO report of The Worldwide Demand for and Supply
of Seafarers by the University of Warwick (3), a number of ocean going vessels will reach
about 55,000 in the year 2000 based on 3 - 4 % of the growing rate of the world trading.
On the other hand, the gap between supply and demand of ocean going officers will widen
from 50,000 in 1990 to 400,000 by the year 2000 and the gap of ratings will widen 350,000
by the year 2000. The report mentioned that the gaps will be filled by mainly seafarers
from Asian countries.
So far the research and development of maritime engineering and safety
operation systems have contributed considerably to increasing the number of seafarers in
countries receiving assistance from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD) but the number of seafarers from OECD countries may become extinct in
the near future as shown in Fig. 1.
Who works on or How is work done in order to research and develop
maritime engineering to support the safety of shipping?
In this paper, we discuss how much WMU and MET institutes in the Far
East can contribute to the above subjects.
