- Says no competition with MAN, Oron
The NLNG Shipping and Marine Services Limited (NSML), a subsidiary of the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) Limited, has announced plans to commence cadetship courses at its Maritime Centre of Excellence (MCOE) located in Bonny, Rivers State.
Disclosing this during a recent chat with newsmen, the Managing Director of NSML, Abdul-Kadir Ahmed, said that the MCOE has already received accreditation from the UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency (UK-MCA) for courses namely the Electronic Chart Display and Information System (ECDIS); and the Basic Training for Liquified Gas Tanker Operations.
According to the NSML boss, “MCOE is an advanced marine training institute. it’s like going to college, when you go to college or you go to the university, you will be issued a Degree after completion of your courses. But for you to get all the necessary certification to ensure that your degree remains relevant and up to date, you will have to go to a training institute. That’s what the MCOE is.
“So, we’re not competing with the Maritime Academy of Nigeria (MAN) or other maritime institutions. We are rather complementing what MAN, Oron and other maritime training institutions are doing. They are the ones that provide the basic training and COC certification.
“What the MCOE does is to provide the additional courses over and above what the Cadets have been able to achieve. The MCOE aims to be an advanced maritime training institute that can provide those advanced maritime certifications in specific courses.
“We have aligned ourselves with the UK-MCA. The UK-MCA is the UK Coast Guard and Marine Agency. They are deemed to be the gold standard of maritime certificate accreditation in the world today.
“So, we have a partnership with an institution in the UK. The plan in place this year is to upgrade the MCOE both in terms of facility, resources, and courses so that the center itself is 100 percent accredited by the UK-MCA. With the upgrade of our simulators, we are also about to commence DP courses at the MCOE.
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“Anybody who is a seafarer that needs advanced certification doesn’t have to go to the UK or anywhere else to go and get that today. They can come to the MCOE in Bonny.
“Like I said, it’s a plan which we have started. The UK-MCA has done the audit of our facility. They’ve identified the things that we need to have more. They have acknowledged what we have. That’s why they’ve accredited those two courses. But we want to go beyond specific course accreditation. We want to go to full center accreditation. which is why we are upgrading the facility. We are increasing the courses and the resources provided at MCOE.
“The two courses already accredited by the UK-MCA are the Electronic Chart Display and Information System (ECDIS); and the Basic Training for Liquified Gas Tanker Operations.”
