Filipino Seafarers may lose EU certification.

[Snowy79]

There's a shock. It would appear the Philippines haven't been complying with the education and training of seafarers. 

The European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) has threatened to withdraw the certification of around 40,000 Filipino seafarers working on European vessels.

This was triggered as some maritime training institutions in the Philippines are aware but stay non-compliant with the International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification, and Watchkeeping (STCW).

As a result, trust was broken when the European agency returned for another audit in 2020 and found that the Philippines’ maritime education, training, and certification system remains lacking.

Since then, the Philippine Maritime Industry Authority (MARINA) has submitted its report on compliance with the STCW and pledged to do more.

Find out what are the potential consequences should MARINA fail to comply with the EU: https://maritimefairtrade.org/philippine-reforms-maritime-schools-curriculum-comply-stcw/

Edited March 26 by Snowy79

[Possum]

The training schools in the Philippines are supposed to meet STCW/EMSA standards. All the STCW training schools in the Philippines are privately owned and overseen by the government, supposedly. However, they failed EU inspection for 17 years. Finally after EMSA threatening to decertify all Filipino mariners they closed 15 schools and promised to do better which allowed Filipino mariners to continue working with further monitoring by EMSA. In fact EMSA had to do something to allow them to continue working or a LOT of shipping would have shut down world wide. Additionally, the Philippine government could not risk losing all the money these guys send home and did not want to face 40,000 unemployed pissed off mariners. The Filipinos I know are hopeful training will improve so they aren't just paying a lot of money for no training.