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Education Plus
Alternative channel to a shipping career
ABDUL LATHEEF NAHA
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Learn about an alternative training scheme for marine engineers, offering an unconventional route to a career in the Merchant Navy.
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— Photo: S.R. Raghunathan
Learning curve: Trainee cadets get a feel of a ship’s control panel.
The demand for trained marine engineers has been on the rise not only in India but in many foreign countries as well. The facilities in India for imparting skills to marine engineers do not meet the growing demand of the shipping industry across the world.
Little wonder, competition for a seafaring career in India is so fierce that a candidate with a shortage of just one per cent in marks can find the doors of major maritime training institutes and engineering colleges closed to him.
It was the realisation of this fact that prompted the International Maritime Organisation to develop an alternative training programme for marine engineers. Accordingly, the Directorate-General of Shipping, the apex body of maritime affairs in India, introduced the Alternate Training Scheme (ATS) in the country a few years ago.
The scheme is a course developed to train young men who have passed Plus Two to become marine engineers in three years. The scheme includes two years of classroom teaching and workshop training and nine months of training on board a ship. Although there are dozens of institutes offering various courses in marine engineering at different levels, the scheme remains a unique training programme confined to select institutes.
Entering the Merchant Navy through the government-run training institutes such as the Training Ship Chanakya (TS Chanakya), Navi Mumbai; and the Marine Engineering Research Institute (MERI), Kolkata; may not be easy.
A candidate has to clear the Joint Entrance Examination of the Indian Institutes of Technology to get admission in these institutes. TS Chanakya offers a three-year B.Sc. nautical science course and MERI conducts a four-year marine engineering course.
But the ATS programmes are different. As they are certificate programmes, the institute has to be selected with extreme care. Recognition and reputation of the institute can be checked from the Directorate-General of Shipping, Union Ministry of Surface Transport, whose website http://www.dgshipping.com
offers a list of major institutions giving training in marine engineering and nautical sciences.
The institutes offering ATS include the International Maritime Institute (IMI), Noida; Chennai School of Ship Management (CSSM), Perambur, Chennai; Don Bosco Maritime Academy (DBMA), Kurla, Mumbai; Interface College of Maritime Studies, Vanagaram, Chennai; Academy of Maritime Education and Training, Saligramam, Chennai; and R.L. Institute of Nautical Science, Madurai.
The IMI was the first maritime institute in the country to get approval from the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) for its four-year BE (Marine) programme.
Its ATS programme has been popular and approved by the Directorate- General of Shipping.
Its ATS is divided into three phases. The first phase will be undertaken at the IMI, during which academic as well as practical subjects will be taught. Hands-on practical training and ship familiarisation will also be part of the training.
The second phase (nine months) will be at sea on board a ship, where the cadets are required to undertake various learning assignments. The third phase will be undertaken again at the IMI, where the students will get training in marine engineering maintenance and advanced workshop practices.
The CSSM offers ATS to men and women who have passed Plus-Two with 60 per cent aggregate marks in mathematics, physics and chemistry, and 50 per cent in English in Plus Two or the 10th standard. Candidates should be aged 20 or below, and their eyesight should be +2.5 without colour blindness.
The ATS course for engineering officer in charge of a watch offered by the DBMA is approved by the Directorate-General of Shipping.
However, the ATS course is not a degree or a diploma. It is a certificate course recognised by the Directorate-General of Shipping, which serves as a qualifying document for Class IV Part Examination of Competency, conducted by the Mercantile Marine Department.
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