The Hindu Business Line : `Ship in Campus': Shoring up maritime training

The `Ship in Campus' laboratory can be set up to provide the curriculum-based training programme and can be an alternative to the marine workshop training.

THE `Ship in Campus' concept mooted by the Directorate-General of Shipping (DGS), as part of curriculum-based training in maritime studies, is sailing into favourable wind as more and more institutions are responding positively to the idea.

Stiff resistance was expected from training institutes in developing such campus-based laboratories because of the financial burden involved in it. But institutions have shown a lot of enthusiasm and some have even gone so far as to procure equipment for this project.

The `Ship in Campus' is likely to be an expensive set-up. However, it is possible to combine the requirements of more than one training institution in the form of a laboratory, a paper presented at a recent seminar pointed out.

The concept was evolved by the DGS few years back as a way out of the acute shortage of training facilities for marine engineers in traditional schools like shipyards.

Moreover, the increasing number of trainees without basic marine engineering training has driven the DGS to look for alternatives following reports that the lack of proper training is affecting the performance of trainees.

The International Maritime Organisation has stipulated training standards and criteria to be fulfilled by marine engineering trainees to be eligible to obtain Class IV Competency Certificate for Marine Engineers under the STCW code.

In India, the DG Shipping is the State authority to ensure that the IMO stipulation is strictly adhered to and, therefore, has set national standards for training of marine engineers at the operational level to work in merchant ships.

In the paper, Dr S. C. Misra of IIT Kharagpur and Dr P. Misra, Deputy Chief Surveyor, DG Shipping, point out that India is one of the major providers of marine engineers for merchant ship operations world-wide. The demand for marine engineering as a profession is on the rise as the recognised marine workshops in the country included six shipyards, six port trusts and eight independent workshops.

The `Ship in Campus' laboratory can be set up to provide the curriculum-based training programme as per the IMO/STCW requirements, and can be an alternative to the marine workshop training.

Since this laboratory is to form a part of an academic programme of the training institution, the academic interest of the laboratory has also to be catered for, they said.

Due to this reason, the DG Shipping has requested IIT Kharagpur to associate itself in the design and development of this laboratory in the training institutions, they said.

One of the main objectives of the concept is to familiarise the student with a ship engine room environment, acquaint him with all systems of a ship's machinery room and its individual components and equipment, impart understanding of the working principle of all systems and the overall ship propulsion system.

As the laboratory is to come up in a training institution, it will be dedicated for training purposes and will not have the constraints of a marine workshop. Therefore, the laboratory will be a model for scientific and academic work.

The students should be able to take readings from the input and output of any equipment or system and analyse the readings and calculate the efficiency and performance characteristics so as to confirm theoretical studies, the paper said.

Though the laboratory is being set up primarily for pre-sea training, the equipment and system can be made to run continuously with appropriate load take-off so as to give watch-keeping training to the students in which case the five-six months post-sea training requirement too can be reduced.

Theoretically, a whole ship with complete working engine room would be ideal. But it is impossible to install such a ship in an institutional environment, as it is likely to be prohibitively expensive to set up and maintain such a facility.

To simulate an ocean-going ship's engine room requires a lot of equipment apart from the engine. However, buying new equipment and machinery is expensive. Therefore, procurement of second-hand equipment is a cheaper alternative suggested by the paper.

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