Calls For Drastic Action Avert Re-occurrence 

Following complaints and comments by maritime stakeholders on the inability by candidates who sit for the Certificate of Competency, COC, examination to pass the exam convincingly, management of the Academy has issued a statement to clarify on factors affecting the exams and why several candidates fail.

The statement by the Academy reads:

The attention of the Management has been drawn to some recent comments on the mass failure in the Certificate of Competency (COC) Examinations conducted by NIMASA at the Maritime Academy of Nigeria in 2021. A few days ago, the Director General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) complained about mass failure of some candidates who participated in the 2021 Examination. The DG NIMASA was correct with his assertions but it goes beyond that.

It would be recalled that in 2018 and 2019, I warned that the trend would continue unless certain issues were addressed. My personal observation is that these candidates hardly attend classes. Candidates register
for the examination but only about 30% of the registered candidates end up attending all the classes.

It is pertinent to note that these classes are Revision Classes and not training as misconstrued in many quarters. There is nothing new that these candidates need to be taught as they have already been trained at various institutions including the Academy before coming to the Academy to write the Examinations. For example, over 70 per cent of the candidates who wrote the 2021 COC Examination attended classes sparingly and some others attended classes less than 20 times and many others did not attend classes at all after registration. The Academy maintains an attendance register which is usually forwarded to NIMASA to keep the Organisation
updated.

It is important to note that a good number of these COC candidates have never been to any formal school or have any formal education in Navigation/Seamanship or Engineering except that they qualified to sit for the examination by time, having served onboard vessels for at least 36 months as prescribed by the Standard of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping (STCW) which automatically makes them eligible to write the Examination. Having mentioned some of these observations, it will be miraculous for such candidates and those who make scanty appearances at
lectures to pass examinations.

It should also be noted that the Academy’s role is simply to conduct Revision Classes for the candidates to rekindle their knowledge of what they already know before becoming eligible to sit for the COC examinations. The truth is that the mass failure has nothing to do with the quality of instructions but can be attributed to poor attitude and poor classroom attendance by several candidates.

The candidates can also not be blamed 100% for poor classroom attendance because, there is no way candidates can leave their employers to spend 6 months at the Academy in the name of Revision Classes as they will
definitely lose their jobs. In the same vein, one cannot also blame the ship owners who have invested billions of Naira to buy vessels and also spend millions to maintain these vessels, only to leave these vessels lying idle at
jetties because their crew are not available. The end state for buying these vessels is to make money by moving goods and providing services from one point to the other using these crew, and if the crew are not available because
they have gone for revision classes for 6 months, how do you expect the ship owners to reap the dividends of their investments?

It is therefore necessary for NIMASA and Stakeholders to come together in order to resolve this impasse, otherwise the challenge will persist and only exceptional candidates will continue to pass the examinations.

Signed; Management.