"The
human element in shipping will be increasingly important as the industry moves
towards ever higher standards of safety, environmental impact and
sustainability, and seeks to do its part to implement the new Sustainable
Development Goals."
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
World Maritime Day 2015
Maritime education and training
World Maritime Day for 2015 is Thursday, 24 September.
The theme for World Maritime Day 2015 is "Maritime
education and training". The theme was adopted to focus attention on
the wider spectrum of maritime education and training, in particular its
adequacy and quality, as the bedrock of a safe and secure shipping industry,
which needs to preserve the quality, practical skills and competence of
qualified human resources, in order to ensure its sustainability.
The 1978 STCW Convention and Code, as amended, set the
international benchmark for the training and education of seafarers. While
compliance with its standards is essential for serving on board ships, the
skills and competence of seafarers, and indeed, the human element ashore, can
only be adequately underpinned, updated and maintained through effective
maritime education and training.
10 Fun Facts about World Maritime Day
This
year, World Maritime Day will be officially observed by the United Nations on
September 24, 2015. With this date fast approaching, I thought it would be fun
to discover and share facts about this special day.
1.
Every Year around the end of September, the International Maritime Organization
(IMO) recognizes and celebrates World
Maritime Day.
2.
The IMO is a specialized agency of the United Nations, and
conceived World Maritime Day in 1978 to promote and communicate IMO’s
achievements and objectives around a central theme.
3.
The first World Maritime Day in 1978 was to mark the IMO Convention’s entry
into force.
4.
The focus this year is on “Maritime Education and Training”, to help further
shine the light on the adequacy and quality of training. Are we meeting the
needs of our industry to ensure safe and secure operations as well as a
sustainable qualified and professionally competent workforce today and in the
future?
5.
The 2015 theme for the “Day
of the Seafarer”, celebrated earlier on June 25, was “A Career at Sea” to
align with this year’s World Maritime Day focus as well as launching the “IMO
Maritime Ambassadors Scheme” to ignite interest in maritime careers.
6.
A main catalyst for this year’s focus is the predicted shortfall of mariners.
7.
IMO’s underlying belief is that training and education are key for seafarers to
put into practice what is required of them.
8.
IMO World Maritime Day themes for the last 5 years were:
2010:
Year of the Seafarer
2011:
Piracy
2012:
One hundred years after the Titanic
2013:
Sustainable Development
2014:
IMO Conventions – Effective Implementations
9.
Japan hosted the “World
Maritime Parallel Day Event” on July 20-21, 2015.
10.
The North America World Maritime Day
event will be celebrating World Maritime Day at MITAGS (Maritime Institute of
Technology and Graduate Studies) October 5-7, Linthicum Heights,
MD.
