Furthermore, VIMARU has set up very ambitious plans to improve English
for the students. Five hundred hours of English learning is given to students in 4
Semesters then from the 3rd year of study the teaching of maritime subjects is carried out
in English. Therefore, graduates from VIMARU from 1997 should communicate in English quite
well in accordance with the 1995 STCW Code.
3.3. Harmonizing the Vietnam MET with regional and international MET.
Compared with worldwide MET, it has been found that MET in Vietnam is
of a rather high standard. There is evidence that since the University was founded in
1974, the MET programmes have been designed at the university level of study in
navigation, marine engineering and marine electrical system. However, as stated above, the
MET programme is a mono - functional programme which is not reasonable to use to educate
and train seafarers at the present time and for the future if the country wants to recruit
its own seamen to foreign shipping companies. So, the current situation can raise the
question as to how Vietnam may harmonize its MET with the international and regional METs.
Our opinion is that Vietnam must do the following:
1. Create an MET syllabus for the future.
2. Prepare the appropriate teaching staff.
3. Improve the training facilities.
3.3.1. Future MET syllabus
We are considering the MET syllabus as a skeleton to build up the
knowledge of seafarers. If the skeleton is not designed to be strong enough, seafarers
shall not be capable of absorbing the necessary knowledge and modern technology which is
applied so quickly and widely on board vessels today. Therefore, to achieve the objectives
of Vietnam the MET should be designed based on the kind of academic subjects as follows:
- Basic subjects
- Prerequisite subjects
- Professional subjects.
The proportion between theoretical study and training jobs is 4:1; this
means that students have to study theoretical subjects including assigments, Lab jobs and
simulations over a period of 4 years; one year (49 weeks) for sea training which is
divided into 3 phases (arrangement of training can be seen in fig 1.3).
