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Calling the Attention of CHED! Hello!!!

In the law of business nothing succeeds like pre-science. It has been said that this noteworthy code of belief is being taken almost to the letter by the majority of our academic institutions in the country.  

Why, you might ask. Well, the shipping industry is abuzz with talk that our privately owned maritime schools have remarkable financial acumen in the sense that they irrationally ignore the tenets of fair business policies if only to earn huge profits for their self aggrandizement. 

Let us take the case of those who would like to obtain their baccalaureate degrees in maritime transportation and marine engineering. I have learned that our pitiable cadets are subjected to exorbitant tuition fees after completion of their mandatory 12-month shipboard training.

As training manager, almost all cadets I have interviewed revealed and affirmed that after devoting 12 months of grueling shipboard training, they are allegedly being charged excessive tuition fees for its equivalent 40 units before their diploma in B.S. Marine Transportation or B.S. Marine Engineering can be released by their respective maritime schools.

It still remains an unanswered conundrum up to now, as to why, when and how this practice came into being. Most of these maritime colleges/universities did not even lift a finger to secure the cadet’s required 12-month shipboard apprenticeship.

Supposedly, it is the solemn duty and responsibility of every maritime school to provide the cadets training vessels so that their students will be able to attain their bachelor’s degree. 

One certification from a well-known maritime school states, “…This is to further certify that the subject Midshipman is now qualified to take his Twelve (12) Months PRACTICAL APPRENTICESHIP (Shipboard Training) equivalent to forty (40) units in order to complete all the requirements leading to the degree of BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN MARINE ENGINEERING (BS Mar E).”  

As a matter of fact it is the shipping agencies that provide the said shipboard training. So, if we will take it from there, the cadets or schools should be the ones to pay the shipping companies which gave them the 12-month practical apprenticeship equivalent to 40 units.

But that is beside the point. What I am truly concerned about is the unjust and cumbersome financial obligations that the cadets’ poor parents are compelled to comply. 

Unlike other BS courses, students of either marine transportation or marine engineering can never be considered graduates unless they have served any sea-going ships as cadets for at least 12 months. Without the obligatory minimum sea experience, they will always linger forever as undergraduates.

As commonly practiced today, however, it is the unfortunate cadet who exerts so much effort and resources in order for him to culminate his BS degree. The greater numbers of the cadets’ parents are impoverished farmers who are constrained to sell or pawn their agricultural land and other hard-earned properties just to enable their sons to find a shipping company that will eventually accept them as cadets. 

Paradoxically, not all companies are capable of paying NIS, TCC or JSU wage scale for cadets. Most of them are merely allotted a monthly allowance of US$50 more or less.

For this reason, many parents are repeatedly encumbered with more financial predicaments when their sons finally come back to their alma mater to procure their diploma in BS Marine Transportation or Marine Engineering.

In other words, when a cadet returns to the school to claim his diploma, he will never obtain it without paying first the tuition fees for the 40 units. What for? Are the cadets really obliged to remunerate the hardships they have undergone while at sea? The supposedly 40 units were earned while at sea courtesy of the shipping companies and not in school. So, I really wonder what could be the just reason for this payment scheme.

I cannot blame some sectors of our shipping industry if they call this a “racket” under the guise of maritime education. I am quite certain that many of the school administrators will resent this exposé but it is about time I aired the grievance of these cadets who have always wanted to ask why but were dead scared to inquire with CHED. 

I think this is just the tip of the iceberg. Nevertheless, to exude vituperative disdain is no panacea to the present situation. I know that there are far more critical issues out there and I am in awe and amazed with all the concerned entities in the maritime industry that will put a curb to the malpractices of our maritime educators.

Meanwhile, I believe that as end-users of these cadets, we should spearhead, as the harbinger of change, by first of all treating them with respect, and allowing them a sense of dignity and pride in their journey towards becoming full-pledged deck officers and engineers.

The government agencies, especially the Commission of Higher Education, should intervene once and for all to curtail the proliferation of this practice. Calling the attention of CHED! Hello!!!

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