BEYOND STCW - THE EFFICACY OF REVALIDATING CORE COMPETENCY TO IMPROVE MARITIME SAFETY

Does current legislation do enough to protect the maritime industry from degradation of skills, and loss of core competencies among deck officers?

In June 2010 at an International Maritime Organization (IMO) Diplomatic Conference in Manila, sweeping changes to the way in which seafarers the world over were trained and certified were adopted through the Manila Amendments to the International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCW) (IMO, 2011) and its associated Codes.

The amendments were designed primarily to bring the Convention up to date with changes in the modern global fleet that have occurred since it was originally adopted in 1978 and subsequently revised in 1995, ensuring that international standards are in place in order to satisfactorily train and certify seafarers to be able to operate the advanced technology that can be found on these vessels.

“The competence of seafarers is the most critical factor in the safe and efficient operation of ships, and has a direct impact on the safety of life at sea and the protection of the marine environment.”                                                                                                                                                                                             (ICS/ISF, 2013)

The above quote is the opening statement in a guide to the Manila Amendments, written in partnership between the International Chamber of Shipping and the International Shipping Federation. It was also the first quote that I used in the course of studying for my master’s degree, and is something that has resonated through every piece of work I completed. My day to day work involves teaching in a maritime education and training institution, where I am often regaled with anecdotal tales from my students which have many times left me feeling concerned for the safety of those still at sea.

The apparent skill fade of officers in the merchant navy is quite appalling if these tales are to be believed, and the have no reason not to, considering some of the academic reports I have seen from students that have been signed off by ‘competent officers’ at sea. Captain Robert Rayner, president and CEO of IDESS Interactive Technologies, in the American P&I Club‘s publication Currents, comments:

“No one in their right mind would put a multi-million dollar asset – their ship and its ability to earn (and lose) money – in the care of individuals who were anything other than competent. Yet that is exactly what is happening, and on an ever increasing scale in the shipping industry,”                                                                                                                                                                                  (Rayner, 2008)

One just has to look at the latest list of accident investigations to find evidence of incidents that have human error as a causal factor. Whilst this article is neither intended to cause offence to those that may have been injured or worse at sea, or be an investigation into the causes of accidents at sea; where human error is a factor, it is difficult to conceive that the personnel involved could be deemed to have acted in a competent manner.

The Manila amendments have introduced specific requirements for updating training across the suite of so called ‘safety courses’ but still accepts that just because an officer has as little as twelve months sea time in five years, they have established continued professional competency under regulation I/11 – Revalidation (IMO, 2011). This project intends to show that this approach is at odds with nearly all other professions, particularly the healthcare, legal and aviation professions; one even has to do refresher training every five years to drive a bus in the UK (UK Government, 2013).

It would seem that our profession has taken on the ‘once qualified, always competent’ mantra, we do not perceive a difference between an officer serving on a cross channel ferry, weaving in and out of traffic, working with a closest point of approach of five cables for two weeks at a time, with an officer working pan ocean on a bulk carrier, who may not even see another vessel in the same period. I believe that it is nearly impossible for an element of skill fade to critical competence not to occur, and would suggest that one way to avoid such skill fade would be through the introduction of periodic assessment of the individual, benchmarking current competency against international standards; the revalidation of core competencies.

The focus of my study was concerned with the latest revision of the International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (IMO, 2011) primarily the most recent Manila amendments, enquiring into their suitability to effectively address the issues of skill fade, and the loss of core critical competency within the new requirements for the revalidation of specialist competencies. 

The scope of the research was limited to those working within the deck department at sea or those with deck officer Certificates of Competency (CoC) working ashore in the maritime sphere. The survey sample was taken from those engaged in short course training, with additional sampling taken during conferences and seminars. In the end, I managed to get 68 returns.

The analysis of my research set out to understand the attitudes of seafarers and those involved in the maritime industry to the changes required under the amendments to the STCW convention, and their openness to extending that change. Specific thought was given to the state of CPD in the industry and mechanisms that can be bought in to stop skills fade.

Continuous Professional Development: It is easier to ask someone to do something that they believe in rather than that which they do not. Ownership of a task in that respect is extremely important. Therefore in the context of the CPD, if seafarers believe they are part of a worthwhile and important process, and that they feel supported in that process, then asking them to take part in CPD tasks to achieve the aim may not create too much difficulty.  However, there must be a limit to the amount of extra work before the situation will start to have a detrimental effect on the whole process. 

My results showed that 75% of respondents thought that CPD was important or very important, although only 58% of returns believed that their company took CPD seriously. It came as no surprise that the results showed a connection between years of experience, the perceived importance of CPD and the belief that having achieved a superior CoC should in some way remove the onus to undertake CPD. As a working member of the Institute’s CPD it also came as no surprise that a very obvious trend existed in the results skewing towards shore side workers feeling that CPD is more important for their future than seagoing staff. There seemed many reasons for this, not least the misunderstanding among people that working towards senior CoC’s can be classed as CPD.

The Manila Amendments: Although the survey sample were keenly aware of the requirements of the Manila amendments, and the areas that currently require revalidation, it is interesting to see that none the sample returned completely agreed with the statement ‘The adoption of the Manila Amendments fully meets the training and certification needs of the modern merchant navy’. Data considered from the results showed a marked rise in strength of feeling towards strongly disagreeing with the statement, with a total of 20 responses. 

The same trend seems to exist with the next statement; with a dramatic rise through the response options to 19 respondents strongly disagreeing with the statement ‘The current level of refresher / revalidation training is sufficient’. It should be noted that with this question there was greater fluctuation through the response averages of seagoing personnel, however when compared with shore side staff, the shore side respondents were once again over a point higher on the 1-6 scale.

Skill Fade: Analysis of the results for the statement ‘Skill fade is prevalent within the industry’ shows that surprisingly 30% of respondents do not agree that skill fade is prevalent in our industry despite the quantity of research that already exists on the subject in all professions. Although not as pronounced as with previous statements there is still an upward trend towards supporting the research with strength of feeling high on agreeing with the statement. Further analysis shows a continued difference in strength of feeling toward the statement in the seagoing and shore side averages, perhaps more striking is the strength of feeling among those respondents sailing as master, a whole 15% clear of any other rank, and not far off 30% higher than shore based respondents. This again matches with anecdotal evidence gathered when attending conferences and presenting on issues of skill fade and loss of competency. 

It was one such event that led me to include the next statement in my questionnaire; ‘I hold a CoC which I have been examined on, and therefore I should keep it forever’. Analysis of the results for this statement are quite intriguing. Taking the total number of responses, the split between disagreeing and agreeing with the statement is 42% to 58% which is also in line with a fairly even average split between the shore and sea based respondents. It’s the difference in strength of feeling between the ranks and most tellingly between the relative experience groups, the strength of feeling of those sailing as master for example are over a 20% lower than that of those sailing as third officer. More pronounced is the strength of feeling aligned with experience, which has 87% of those supporting the statement having over 10 years’ experience since achieving their last CoC.

The final two statements in the questionnaire related to improving the scope of revalidation, and pushing to make refresher training of core competencies mandatory. Comparisons were drawn between the responses for both statements was to measure the likelihood of ever meeting the ultimate goal of effecting change in the requirements for revalidation of CoC’s.

The maritime industry should look to other professions and increase the scope of refresher / revalidation training

All holders of CoC’s should undertake mandatory refresher training to maintain validity of critical competency.

Analysis of the full responses proved surprising, weighting 78% – 22% in favour of looking to other professions to increase the scope of refresher / revalidation training. Comparison with the full analysis of statement 6 shows a decline to 66% - 33% in favour of making refresher training mandatory.

The trend in strength of feeling throughout the responses to increasing the scope to refresher training is very encouraging, having a clear and sharp upwards trajectory towards complete agreement with the statement. 

The option was there for those sampled in this process to comment freely upon the questions asked in the survey, and despite the low level of uptake among those sampled, many of the returns raised insightful ideas that often had common threads running through them, particularly relating to areas currently included in the refresher / revalidation training, and those areas that are not, such as ‘Rule of the Road’ training, or implementing revalidation training for ECDIS.

Professional practices are changing, and with them the requirement to do more to maintain competency, often mandatory in nature in order to keep professional certification valid. From the research carried out, there appears to be a significant sway of opinion, almost a revolution in the industry, with a number of those sampled agreeing with the suggestion that current legislation is not effective enough in pushing to improve maritime safety.

As previously discussed, the Manila amendments have introduced specific requirements for updating training across the suite of so called ‘safety courses’ but still accepts that just because an officer has as little as twelve months sea time in five years, they have established continued professional competency under regulation I/11 – Revalidation (IMO, 2011). Through the review of existing literature, and my own research, I have found this to be completely at odds with other professions, such as the aviation, legal and healthcare professions, and moreover completely at odds with the opinion of those surveyed for this project.

There seems to deepening opinion among those in the industry that we are just not doing enough to improve the overall safety of those employed at sea, in order to prevent further loss of life and damage to the marine environment.

Something that has come to my attention through analysing the results of the research is that although the data contains very strong evidence with which to base conclusions on, the survey could have asked some more in depth questions of the respondents, particularly around the topic of additional areas that should be included as part of the revalidation process, something I hope to look at in the future.

Whilst I was extremely pleased that strength of opinion supports my hypothesis, I am not na?ve enough to believe that this is enough to change current practice and attitudes to CPD and revalidation training under STCW, not least because the strongest sense of agreement came from a demographic that are not in the positions within industry that would be required to carry a change of this magnitude through at this time.