The Rector, Certified Institute of Shipping (CIS), Dr. Alex Okwuashi recently advised maritime training institutions to collaborate with indigenous ship owners in training their students.

Okwuashi told newsmen in Lagos that such collaboration would enable the students to acquire the much needed practical experience.

“Seafaring is one of the components of shipping, however, the bane of seafarers training in Nigeria is the lack of training ships with which the students can gain the necessary sea time experience.

“It is just like training a pilot or a driver on paper, his training will not be complete without practical flying or driving experience, so also it is with seafaring.

“The seafarers must handle the equipment themselves and that experience cannot be acquired by mere word of mouth,’’ he said.

The rector said that this year, the institute would focus on the security implications in shipping. He said that the institute would insist on having security as a topic for all the corporate trainings it would undertake this year.

“We are going to insist on more awareness in security training such as cargo handling and safety of equipment such that accidents, injury and theft of cargo can be reduced, ” the CIS rector said.

Okwuashi said that in 2012, the institute trained over 1,000 students at the undergraduate and diploma levels excluding postgraduate students.

“We had short courses, seminars and workshops during the year 2012, which did not attract certification.

These were done for corporate organisations and it was in batches. “Some of the corporate organisations that sent their employees to us were Dangote, Sifax and ENL Consortium. “We had six batches of corporate training with these organizations, he said.