Research to improve maritime education and training for energy efficient ship operation in China
Abstract
The dissertation is a study to improve Chinese maritime education and training (MET) for raising the performance of energy efficient ship operation, by analyzing the increasing demand on seafarers’ capacity and the barriers existing in the Chinese MET for energy efficient ship operation. Finally, a systematic framework of improvement measures was provided for Chinese MET. A brief review of the increasing demand on seafarers for energy efficient ship operation was carried out from four aspects including regulations, practices on board ships, alternative fuel and renewable energy sources. Based on the increasing demand, the barriers existing in the Chinese MET was analyzed by literature review and questionnaires. The final presentation of the barriers was obtained by an online workshop, the barriers include four aspects, courses, pedagogy, cognition practice, and cultural construction. Additionally, each aspect of the barriers includes four dimensions, which are human resource, financial resource, other resource and policy. Furthermore, in order to develop the framework of improvement measures, the lessons from other industries were also analyzed by literature review. On the basis of the increasing demand on seafarers and the identified barriers, a systematic framework of improvement measures was built up, which contains two new subjects, a comprehensive project for improving pedagogy, and some recommendations for cognition practice, cultural construction and policy making. Additionally, a batch of cognition practice of Marine Engineering students of DMU was chosen to assess the advised workshop through online communication with educators. All attending students believed that the workshop is helpful for improving understanding of energy efficient ship operation. Finally, the PDCA cycle and the participatory design approach were introduced for the development of the framework.