Evaluation of education in the maritime sector

05/2015–08/2017

Finnish maritime education, certificates and watchkeeping are governed by the STCW Convention of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and Directive 2008/106/EC on the minimum level of training of seafarers, which is also based on the Convention. The objective of the Convention and the Directive is to unify the education of seafarers on the international level and to define the required minimum skills for different certificates. The Convention requires that IMO approves the education and certificate system of every country as well as their quality management system based on an independent assessment. In this evaluation, the independent party is represented by FINEEC. The evaluation must be conducted every five years and the results of the evaluation are reported to IMO and the European Union. Only those education units that have been approved by IMO have the right to provide education that leads to an international certificate of competency.

The evaluation was conducted in cooperation with the Finnish Transport Safety Agency (Trafi) between May 2015 – August 2017. The evaluation focused on the vocational institutions and universities of applied sciences that offer education in the maritime sector. The aim of the evaluation was to ensure that the Finnish organisations offering education in the maritime sector have functional quality management systems and procedures to provide education that fulfils the quality criteria of the STCW Convention (Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers) and that the education unit fulfills the requirements of the STCW Convention. Simulator training was assessed as a national focus area. The evaluation was conducted by an external evaluation team appointed by Finnish National Education Evaluation Centre (FINEEC).

The evaluation was based on a self-assessment by each educational organisation, background materials, and an evaluation visit by the evaluation team. The site visits to the education units were conducted during April 2016 – January 2017.

The national report on the evaluation was completed in autumn 2017, and the Finnish Transport Safety Agency (Trafi) reported the results of the evaluation to the International Maritime Organisation IMO and the EU.