THE QUALITY OF MET OF SHIP OFFICERS IN NIGERIA
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1.1 BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Nigeria is a West African country with a coastline of about eight hundred and seventy kilometers long and land occupying an area of about nine hundred thirteen thousand and seventy-five kilometers square (Otobo, 1997). It is geographically located between the tropics and experiences the equatorial climate thus making the country receive heavy rainfall and high humidity. Because of this, the country is very productive and has a high population (AfDevinfo, 2014). As a matter of fact, it is the country with the highest population in Africa with about one hundred, seventy million people. Of this, slightly over fifty percent of the population is above the poverty line and about five million of the Nigerian youths are unemployed (Mwalinu, 2005).
None the less, in spite of the vast resources the country has and the high rate of unemployment especially among the youth (Lazarus, 2013). It was necessary to tap into the marine resources to increase the overall GDP of the country and also reduce the levels of unemployment among the youths (Pardo, 1999). The country began investing into the marine industry since the discovery of oil in the region and since then there has been an increase in the number of resources that have been put to increase the productivity of the industry (Khalifa & Abdul-Azia, 2010). Currently, in Nigeria, the Marine industry is a major sector of the economy and contributes a considerably to the country’s total GDP. With the wide coastline of about eight hundred Kilometers, there is a lot of potential in the marine industry of the country that has so far been untapped (AfDevinfo, 2014). As a matter of fact, in an attempt to empower the youth of the country, the government of Nigeria has been at the forefront to improve the maritime industry of Nigeria to reduce the unemployment levels among the youths (Khalifa & Abdul-Azia, 2010).
The importance of marine industry cannot be over-emphasized; this is because studies have shown that the marine industry accounts for over seventy percent of all the transport requirements in the world today (Peters, 1998). This shows the potential of the marine industry and also gives a glimpse of the number of benefits the country can get by investing in this industry. Since there are oil deposits in the country, the country is resting assured to get lasting benefits from this industry (Ringard, 1999).
The multiplier effect of the marine industry is quite encouraging, for example, studies have shown that for every job created in in the shipping industry as a marine merchant, there are 4.4 more jobs created within the country (Ryle, 2008). Therefore, this multiplier effect makes it easier for the country to curb the unemployment levels by ensuring an even distribution of jobs within the country (Khalifa & Abdul-Azia, 2010). By investing in the marine industry, this multiplier effect would increase the rate at which the Nigerian youth get jobs at a high rate. Other than this, the other multiplier effect exhibited by this industry is that for every dollar generated by the staff in this sector, about 3.4 dollars are generated within the economy. This comes about due to the extensive trading that occurs at the coastline whereby the velocity of money is very high as money changes hands more quickly. Other than this foreign exchange also plays a big role in this multiplier effect (Mwalinu, 2005).
The country offers a good environment of trading in that in the West African states that border the Atlantic Ocean, about 80% of the businesses that take place along the whole west African coastline takes place along the Nigerian coastline (Sota, 2012). This is an indication of the high potential the country has in excelling in the marine industry (Lazarus, 2013).
Other than this, Nigeria is the 6th largest producer of crude oil globally and has a vast reserve of gas which has high value as it is a resource that can get depleted. In addition to this, the country is a large producer of agricultural products and also imports large volumes of finished and semi-finished goods (AfDevinfo, 2014). These large volumes of goods would be much more expensive if transported to the trading nations via air or even road since most of them are cumbersome equipment or bulky. None the less, buy transporting these goods by ship, the cost of transportation is significantly cheaper and large volumes of goods can be ferried across countries (Mwalinu, 2005). By investing in the shipping industry, the country would save loads of cash that would instead be used to foster economic development of the country.
With respect to the benefits brought in the country by the Nigerian nationals due to the crude oil business (Osalor, 2013). It was noticed that in the late 2008 and early 2013, there was an increase in the production of crude oil in the region which in turn increased the number of benefits that would have accrued in the country (Haralambides, 2014). However, it was also discovered that there was no single Nigerian involved in this activity, not as a shipping merchant since the ships did not have a Nigerian flag hence all the benefits that count have come into the country were taken somewhere else as depicted by the multiplier effect even though the crude oil resource is in Nigeria (Khalifa & Abdul-Azia, 2010).
In addition to this, studies have shown that Nigeria produces roughly 900 million barrels of crude oil in a year. Whereby the shipping vessels that transport the crude oil gets a freight charge of about one and a quarter billion dollars a year (Umejuru, 2002). However, since Nigeria has no shipping line, no fraction of the freight benefits goes into the country even though the resources naturally occur in the country.
The marine industry, once fully tapped, would increase the number of available jobs in the country by a large proportion (AfDevinfo, 2014). For example, some of the jobs that would be created include; vessel repairs and maintenance, cargo handling, anchor handling, pilot and towage services, warehousing, development ports, jetty infrastructure etc. however, these jobs cannot come into realization if the nationals of the country are not competent enough to handle the workload that is placed on them (Osalor, 2013). In addition to this, if a person goes ahead and studies the required disciplines required in doing such tasks, most of them would be rendered inactive as the country does not have a shipping line and also lacks the required machinery to do quality work (Vanstone, 2007).
1.2 JUSTIFICATION
From the background information, it is clear that Nigeria is missing out a lot on the benefits they are supposed to accrue from the marine industry. As a matter of fact, it is the developed countries that trade with Nigeria that get most of the benefits that the Nigerians are supposed to get (Haralambides, 2014). With the Equatorial climate that makes the country rich in agriculture and the large reserved of gas and crude oil, it is important to find out and subsequently solve the issue that is hindering the country from completely tapping into this industry (Jones, 2010). In an attempt to analyze the source of the problem, research shows that there are two possible causes; the first one is that the quality of maritime education and training in Nigeria is not up to standards or the Government has failed to enforce the Cabotage Act through NIMASA (Wagner, 2009).
This paper concentrates on the quality of maritime education and training of ship officers in Nigeria as a possible cause of the problem hindering the Marine industry from reaching its full potential and therefore making the country accrue the full benefits of the industry that goes to developed foreign countries.
1.3 AIM
The aim of this paper is to analyze the challenges of maritime education and training of ship officers in Nigeria and its effect on their employability.
1.4 OBJECTIVES
In an attempt to achieve the main aim of this paper, the following objectives were arrived upon which when analyzed would lead one to know whether the quality of education offered to the ship officers by the maritime education and training institution in Nigeria is of quality standards or not.
1. Assess the current maritime education and training system in Nigeria.
2. Identify the current problems hindering the fulfillment of quality education and training of Nigeria ship officers.
3. Review the impact of training Nigerian ship officers receive towards their line of work.
4. Explore various ways to develop the quality of education and training in Nigeria’s Maritime Education and Training institutions to enhance ship officers’ employability.
1.5 LIMITATIONS
In an attempt to achieve the aim of this study the researcher faced certain challenges that would have otherwise made the research much easier. The first challenge is that the research is limited to certain people in the marine industry, these are ship officers who are Nigerian nationals. It was important to ensure that the ship officers were Nigerian nationals since they are the only ones who have first-hand information about the Nigerian maritime education and training (Haralambides, 2014). Other than this, they are the only ones who are also in the shipping industry and can, therefore, tell whether the training they received in the maritime training institutions was relevant or not (Worthham, 2008). The second limitation was the time, locational and financial constraints, whereby the research was supposed to be completed in a specific period of time hence limiting further data collection and research requirements (Morrison, 2011). The research also had financial constraints during the data collection process and also in arranging for logistics (Muirhead, 1998).
In addition to this, with the aforementioned constraints, since the research required primary data collection, it was not easy to achieve the relevant number for valid results keeping in mind that the central limit theorem requires that respondents should be more than 30 for the sample to be a representative of the whole population (Ofori, 1997). This was partly because the few respondents who were available were also too busy to get time to fill in the questionnaire.
1.6 STUDY OUTLINE
The study of the quality of maritime education and training of ship officers in Nigeria is divided into five chapters in order to bring about the aim of the study. These include; The Introduction and the background information, the literature review section, that gathers relevant points from valid and reviewed secondary sources that are relevant to this study. The methodology section that explains how data was collected, the sampling procedures used and explains how and why the data collected was analyzed in a specified way. The analysis section gathers the data collected from the primary sources and processes them into more meaningful information that can be used to draw conclusions of the research (Haralambides, 2014). The discussion and analysis section interprets and explains the findings arrived at the data analysis section and explains why that is the case of the matter (Yakushenkov, 2003). And the last section is the conclusion and reflection of the study that gives an overview of the whole study and summarizes it.
1.7 SUMMARY
The background information of this study clearly brings out the importance of the marine industry by showing the benefits developed countries get especially through the multiplier effect. By engaging with this industry, the government of Nigerian government is sure to reduce the unemployment levels among the youth and also increase the general productivity of the country. For over half a decade after the country has started investing into the marine industry, the progress made is minimal compared to the high potential the country has (Zade, 2007). An overview of the problems faced in this industry narrows down the source of the issue to two institutions; i.e. either the government of the maritime training institutions. In this research paper, maritime training institutions are investigated and specifically the quality of maritime education and training of ship officers in Nigeria.
