“Opportunities for On-board Training” to Students from Developing Countries,

Contributing to Solving Global Shortage of Marine Officers

Korea Maritime and Ocean Univerity (KMOU), which opened the Global On-board Training Center (GOBTC) in the university with an aim to boost international cooperation and effectiveness of on-board training to nurture marine officers of global level, held the signboard-hanging ceremony on April 27.

 The ceremony was attended by Mr. Park Han-il, president of KMOU, Mr. An Sang-hyun, president of KMOU Alumni, Mr. Song Sam-jong, Director General of Marine and Fisheries Bureau, Busan Metropolitan City, Mr. Park Gi-guk, Executive Director of Korea Ship Managers’ Association, and Mr. Jang Sang-un, Director of Korea Shipowners’s Association.

GOBTC was established after the Secretary-General of the UN International Maritime Organization (IMO) and government delegations from 5 countries including KMOU singed at the diplomatic conference to amend the STCW convention held in Manila, the Philippines in June 2010. At that time, the secretariat operated at the department of maritime affairs of Turkish Istanbul Technical University with the Bureau of Maritime Affairs of the Philippines serving as the contact point for the IMO.  

GOBTC provided 4 Ukraine and South African students with opportunities for on-board training on KMOU training vessel HANBADA in 2012. In November 2013, the center received from IMO an assistance of USD 120,000 funding for operating on-board training. Later in March 2015, the center moved its secretariat from Turkey to the Maritime University in Romania and in October 2017 it hosted “The 1^st international conference on onboard training” at KMOU with support from Busan Metropolitan City and the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries of Korea. As a result, president Park Han-il of KMOU was elected as president of GOBTC. With the adoption of Busan Declaration aimed to promote the city’s status of maritime capital of the nation and the nation’s status of a global maritime power to the world, the GOBTC was relocated in KMOU last March.    

According to estimates by Baltic International Maritime Conference (BIMCO), we will be short of 92,000 marine officers by 2020 and 147,500 by 2025.

The GOBTC at KMOU plans to provide students from maritime universities with no train vessels in developing countries with opportunities for on-board training by utilizing unused space of training ships of KMOU or other organizations in Korea. To this end, we have requested from the IMO's ITCP (International Technical Cooperation Program) a grant of $100,000 for one-year training for 8 students. It is also seeking cooperation with other countries like Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Nigeria, Indonesia, and Vietnam. 

Also serving as president of GOBTC, president Park of KMOU said, “the astounding growth of Korea from one of the world’s poorest countries without even one national vessel to one of the global maritime powers was largely contributed by our marine officers who got on board merchant vessels to navigate across the global oceans” and added “to address global challenges of nurturing new marine officers, KMOU, the city of Busan as well as the nation will join forces with GOBTC at the core of the efforts.

Professor Ye Byung-duk of KMOU, who led the efforts to establish the center, spoke, “one of the surest ways to solve the global shortage of marine officers is to give students from developing countries opportunities for on-board training” and hopefully said, “the opening of GOBTC under KMOU will improve the national image as an advanced maritime country which produced a secretary general of IMO and also serve as a stepping stone for obtaining international support for making policies and securing the ocean sovereignty.