Trust in your trainers
Crew have lost trust in training schools, so we offered a voice to your top three training schools, as voted for by you, and asked them to explain why crew should place a little bit more faith in their educators.…
Crew have lost trust in training schools. It’s a sad fact, but it’s something you’re telling us over and over again. So we offered a voice to your top three training schools (Maritime Professional Training, Warsash Superyacht Academy and Bluewater), as voted for by you in our Superyacht Golden Ticket crew survey, and asked them to explain why crew should place a little bit more faith in their educators.
Yes, it is true, most schools run as a business and everyone will understand that they have to, as most are not funded in any other manner. However, nobody of sound mind would engage in yacht training based on financial consideration – there are much easier ways to earn money. Most schools operate close to break-even, some even have to keep operations going through a period where losses wipe out any profits. The best schools try to use the tuition paid by the crewmember to hire the most experienced faculty and administrative staff, and they invest heavily in facilities, equipment, technology, course development and improvements to the level of, and value of, the training provided.
A common misconception is that schools have invented many courses just to get to crews’ purses.
Any approach other than the above would be wrong. The route to yacht CoCs consists of a long string of individual courses. It will take in excess of 20 courses over several years for a newbie to become an MCA or USCG Master (3,000gt), so it can only be in the schools’ interests to build a relationship of trust and see the crewmember retuning over and over again.
A common misconception is that schools have invented many courses just to get to crews’ purses. Nothing could be further from the truth. The majority of the courses are based on mandatory requirements – the MCA or USCG interpretation of the adopted IMO Code. And, yet again, schools are the crews’ advocates; at least once a year, schools meet with the MCA and USCG to discuss the needs of yacht crew. Thereby the emphasis is to ensure that the training remains relevant to yachting, and to avoid any unnecessary ‘gold-plating’. These meetings are also attended by the PYA to give yacht crew a further voice.
We are all in this together. Training doesn’t stop in the classroom – it should extend to a culture on board. Mentoring is one of the most important and efficient ways of training. Only a concerted effort from all involved, including the schools, has the desired effect.
Find the full article in issue 78 of The Crew Report - download now.
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Maritime Professional Training Inc (MPT)
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