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Malaysian Maritime Academy (Alam)
plans to recruit about 500 cadets for its July
intake this year.
However, the number of recruits could be higher
if more shipping companies provided the
assistance in terms of berthing time, said chief
executive officer M. Adthisaya Ganesen.
He told StarBiz that the major limiting factor
on the number of cadets that could be recruited
was the ship berth time and Alam seriously
required more local shipping companies to
participate in the development of human resource
capital for the industry.
“Both the Public Services Department and Felda
have committed to sponsor 20 and 40 cadets
respectively, and we will have to work very hard
to secure berthing time for their sponsored
cadets as they are not ship owners or ship
operators,” he said.
Berthing time is a compulsory on-the-job
training for cadets to complete their studies.
He said the stakeholders had to bear in mind
that the sooner they invested in human capital
development, the sooner the current major
shortage of manpower in the shipping industry
would be eased.
“Time is the factor here, as it takes about 10
years to develop a fresh school leaver into a
master mariner or a chief engineer,” he said.
On the concerns of the local shipping companies
about losing their sponsored candidates to
international shipping organisations, he pointed
out that at MISC Bhd, the attrition rate was
lower among the officers who had graduated from
Alam. He said this was due to the initiatives
that had been implemented at Alam since 2005
that included stringent pre-selection and
selection process of candidates whereby only
those who had the inclination towards sea-going
career would be selected and trained.
Asked whether Alam catered only to MISC, Ganesen
said the academy also took in students sponsored
by other shipping companies.
“For the last year intake, about 30% of the
total 525 cadets came from other shipping
companies and organisations.
“If not for MISC and Petroliam Nasional Bhd's
significant funding to Alam, it would not have
been possible for the academy to enhance its
campus facilities and capabilities to that of a
world-class maritime education and training
institution,” he noted.
For mechanical engineering degree holders who
are interested to go into seafaring, Alam has
recently came up with an alternative route.
The bridging course has been approved by the
Malaysian Marine Department. It involves six
months of practical and theory classes at Alam's
branch campus in Batu Rakit, Terengganu. |
