The marine industry is a key component of the European economy and includes activities such as traditional shipping, offshore oil and gas, renewables and offshore construction. These activities are undertaken on sight by ships and offshore facilities, supported from shore by a complementary cluster which includes ships’ construction, repair, management, chartering, survey, classification, insurance, consultancy, valuation and finance. The marine education and training organisations and the recruitment companies are key stakeholders and part of the industry value chain, as they educate and supply workforce for the marine industry. The European labour is in direct competition with the labour supplied by the emerging Asian countries. While the latter seek to achieve competitive advantage through cost leadership, the European labour needs to respond with a differentiation approach. This proposal addresses this latter approach, which envisages supplying better quality personnel and targeting the full range of primary and support activities of the marine industry. Such approach needs to proactively consider the trends outlook of the rapidly changing industry, shaped by technological advancement and the supply and demand curves.In view of these challenges, the industry identified the improvement of workers’ skill base through skills programmes as a primary mean to achieve competitive advantage (IMarEST 2015). The skills base equally refers to the hard skills adapted to new technologies and activities, and to the soft skills that assist employees to demonstrate and complement their hard skills. Employers benefit from both above categories of skill sets by enriching their intangible resources through improved organisational competences. EU recognises this context and recommends education development through increasing quality of and access to vocational education and training and their adaptation to labour market needs.This project proposal aims to improve the employability skills and work opportunities for marine workers and to reduce the existing gap between the education and labour market, by diversification of career paths and skills recognition. Specifically, this project intends to build a collaborative network to continuously identify the gaps between marine labour market needs and educational field in terms of both hard and soft skills. This network will improve soft skills by continuous professional development of educational staff and marine workers in ICT to diversify career paths through collaborative short term training.The proposal will create teaching curricula focused on areas of hard skills shortage, targeting new marine qualifications in accordance with the National Qualification Frameworks, and define competence standards focused on learning outcomes, supported by development of open source resources. These will assist in establishing a unified system for transparency of skills and qualification by referring the work-related skills and learning outcomes to the European Qualification Framework, for recognition and validation.The 3 year project is led by Constanta Maritime University (CMU). Nikola Yonkov Vaptsarov Naval Academy, European Association of Career Guidance and STC-Group networked with CMU during previous European financed projects and joined this project. The partnership envisages involving more than 15 trainers and 6 administration personnel, as well as 100 participants from the marine industry.An online marine survey instrument will assist to map the stakeholders and subsequently to identify and develop new marine qualifications in areas of skill shortages, which requires trainers’ improved competence. Competence will be enhanced through short term training sessions. Partners will establish a common framework for skills assessment, and develop an E-platform for blended learning to facilitate target group’s access to training and certification. The platform will be tested during pilot courses.The methodology aims at increasing project efficiency and effectiveness, by establishing a framework for the coordination, reporting and evaluation. This framework includes circular management of time, budget, human resources and risk, and key performance indicators.The expected results include an online survey instrument, four newly developed marine qualifications supported by learning materials submitted to national agencies to be included into NQF, four soft skills supported by learning materials and an E-platform for Blended Learning.The project will have direct impact on the labour market/training organisations/VET trainees triangle. These will benefit from improved and transparent system for blended learning, new curricula design/assessment, better trainers and adequately trained and certified employees to EU standards.Longer term benefits include E-platform, continued online survey, curricula development for soft/hard skills training and organisational competence and networking.
The marine industry is a key component of the European economy and includes activities such as traditional shipping, offshore oil and gas, renewables and offshore construction. These activities are undertaken on sight by ships and offshore facilities, supported from shore by a complementary cluster which includes ships’ construction, repair, management, chartering, survey, classification, insurance, consultancy, valuation and finance. The marine education and training organisations and the recruitment companies are key stakeholders and part of the industry value chain, as they educate and supply workforce for the marine industry. In this context, the project main objective was to improve the employability skills and work opportunities for marine workers and to reduce the existing gap between the education and labour market, by diversification of career paths and skills recognition. This project led by Constanta Maritime University, Romania envisaged supplying better quality personnel and targeting the full range of primary and support activities of the marine industry. Such approach needs to proactively consider the trends outlook of the rapidly changing industry, shaped by technological advancement and the supply and demand curves. In order to respond to these challenges, we collaborated with researchers from Nikola Yonkov Vaptsarov Naval Academy from Bulgaria, European Association of Career Guidance from Cyprus and STC-Group, from Netherlands. Specifically, we built a collaborative network to continuously identify the gaps between marine labour market needs and educational field in terms of both hard and soft skills. We used this network and 200+ marine professionals to identify those skills that are most required by marine labour market. The skills base equally refers to the technical skills adapted to new technologies and activities, and to the soft skills that assist employees to demonstrate and complement their hard skills. Employers benefit from both above categories of skill sets by enriching their intangible resources through improved organisational competences. EU recognises this context and recommends education development through increasing quality of and access to vocational education and training and their adaptation to labour market needs. The next stage was represented by creation of teaching curricula focused on areas of hard skills shortage, targeting new marine qualifications: - Ballast water management - Energy efficiency of ships - Dynamic positioning maintenance - Marine surveying - Cargo surveyor - High Voltage Safety and Maintenance - Electronic navigational charts In order to promote the continuous professional development of educational staff and marine workers in using ICT methodologies for training and assessment four learning sessions have been organized. Ten educational staff from partners’ institutions participated to two short term training sessions aiming to establish a common framework for skills development and assessment for: Effective communication, Leadership, Teamwork and Problem-solving. The developed materials and learning assessments were integrated in a E-platform for blended learning to facilitate target group’s access to training and certification. A system for recognition and validation of work-related skills and learning outcomes was integrated on the platform and it was tested during two pilot courses with 25 participants from Romania and Bulgaria. The project results impacted on the marine labor market, marine workers, training organizations and VET trainees that benefit from improved and transparent system for blended learning, new curricula for soft and technical skills development and assessment, better trainers and adequately trained and certified employees. Longer term benefits include: - E-platform for blended learning and assessment, continued online survey to identify the marine labour market requirements, curricula developed for seven marine specific subjects and for four soft skills. - Update of the database of the Classification of Occupation from Romania with marine specific occupations: Expert for operation of Dynamic positioning systems, Marine surveyor, Inland waterways surveyor and Technician for dynamic positioning system maintenance. - International recognition for continuing professional development by participation to courses for: Marine surveying, Cargo surveyor, High Voltage Safety and Maintenance, Electronic navigational charts. - Professional development of educational staff in using ICT and new pedagogical approaches for teaching and assessment, which represents a benefit for the new generation of learners. Through academic articles, workshops, multiplier events and panel session, the results were transferred to 500+ direct and indirect participants: future and actual marine workers, marine employers, trainers and training institutions that can provide training in accordance with the marine labour market expectations.