HOW TO GET OUT OF THIS RUT TRAP

摘要

The last 8 years in author's effort of applying information technology in MET to bring an open, quality driven and standardized education platform, accessible either on internet or intranet, has brought out not-so-encouraging results! Yet, all the cost benefit analysis remains toward adaptation of technology: only that approach can leapfrog the hurdle that faces the maritime education and training (MET) in the developing as well as the developed world. Gaps in investment resources and lack of experience in providing quality MET will remain. A feasible way to shorten that could be through a student-centric electronic bundling of some of the courses and in their flexible delivery as per student's learning needs. Yet, there are few success stories in MET or elsewhere in higher education: not because the educational technology is not available, but the inertia of the education industry is like the walks of a mammoth creature with a prehistoric aura of unchanging tradition: and thereby in a "stuck in the middle" scenario, from where it is difficult to escape without labor. The demand for trained seagoing officers fluctuates and that drives most of the MET schools into chaotic shuffle and scuffle from time to time, but they tend to remain within their known comfort levels using minimal technology and clever utilization of faculty and other resources. While productivity has improved with part-timers, intelligent time-tabling and outsourcing, a true revitalization or change in the MET business process has not emerged. It is still guided by a ratio based, teacher: student and square footage of laboratory space requirement that defines the infrastructure. In a highly regulated and capital intensive MET, there is little incentive for the schools to think of change - leave alone a strategic, step-by-step implementation of technology in education. The paper draws from US examples in an effort to encourage MET leadership to look beyond.