2. The present condition and movement of Japanese shipping
Today the young generation in developed countries are hesitating to
work on a ship as an officer or a rating due to the deterioration of the working
environment, such as long isolation from land, low wages, etc. This deterioration is one
of the main causes of decreasing candidates of MET institutes and one of the main triggers
for withdrawing the institutes themselves.
For keeping the present scale on more world wide shipping trade it is
an indispensable condition to maintain sufficient quality and quantity of seafarers. If we
cannot maintain a sufficient level, there might be one way done by the Japanese Shipping
industries. The Modernization scheme (4) is the ship operating form by small size crew.
This form needs a large number of skillful staff on land and highly skilled crew on board
for operating and maintaining the ships properly. These staff and crews of watch-officers
and dual purpose crews, are only promoted from seafarers who have long experience and are
well trained.
How many MET institutes can provide the necessary upgrading knowledge
and train specialists? It should be very rare.
On the other hand, Japanese seafarers employed on 31 oceangoing
shipping companies decreased to about 6000 as of April 1994. Approximately four fifth of
the seafarers decreased ten years ago (5) due to modernization schemes and incentive
retirement allowances. For the above reasons, Japanese Shipping companies are shifting
from the ships operation form by small Japanese crews to the ships operation form by mixed
manning in order to regain international competitiveness.
If this shift happens, Japanese competent seafarers will die out. How
will then the experienced technological know-how be passed on to fliture generations?
3. MET at World Maritime University and Japan
3.1 World Maritime University
The University was established in 1983 by the 'MO to address the lack
of highly trained specialized maritime personnel in developing countries. Highly
specialized international maritime conventions could be implemented for the benefit of the
whole global community (6).
The class of 1995 brings the total WMU graduates to date to 1052 from
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