Marine Engineering as Future Career in Malaysia

The employability of seafarers is directly linked to their competency level. Perhaps, this is the main reason why crew members from certain countries enjoy preference in the employment market. Therefore, the sea career prospects of Malaysian seafarers should be viewed from their competency which strongly related to the kind of training offered by Marine Education Training (MET) institutions. In this paper, the developments of maritime industry in last 10-15 years reviewed the limitations of the STCW 95 training standards in achieving the knowledge demands of high technological equipment on board new merchant ships is reviewed. The authors identified essential training for Malaysian seafarers. Malaysian Maritime Academy (ALAM) has taken important initiatives of enriching MET curriculum work done, beyond the minimum stipulation of the STCW 95, and benchmarking with leading world class MET institutions is reported. The DNV Sea-Skill audit and certification is an example of the commitment by ALAM which offer a program for competence beyond compliance. The paper also reviewed discusses the importance of University Malaysia Terengganu (UMT) degree program maritime Technology as support to need for more theoretical knowledge required to compliment STCW.