EFFECT OF TRAINING ON SHIPBOARD OIL POLLUTION VIOLATIONS

Industrialization has brought forth comforts and catastrophes. In the regular scheme of technological developments, the worst malady faced by man is the defiling of the environment. Shipping, being a heavily regulated industry, has contributed less in comparison to other land based polluters. But the enormity of an oil spill and the post-spill clean-ups are reasons enough for countries to tighten the pollution laws and today, any action violating these laws is seen as a crime. Ships are being detained, penalized for pollution violations.

Environmental concerns and criminalizing incidents have become issues of concern. While considering these view points, a worthwhile approach would be to look at the seafarer training. Assessment of the competency of the shipboard officer is largely carried out by examinations and onboard assessments. This could be extended to other means such as research surveys. The Paper projects inputs from a study undertaken to assess the level of training and awareness in pollution matters amongst shipboard officers.

The representative sample for the study was largely drawn from the Malaysian seafaring officers and also the Indian officers for better representation of the worldwide officers. Curriculum exposure to MARPOL, intensity and level of ship operational issues such as bypassing the separators and falsification of record books were analyzed in the study. Insight was obtained in difficulties experienced while following MARPOL practices. Typical training syllabi were compared to suggested Lesson Plans, survey results were analyzed by statistical methods to verify framed hypotheses on pollution violations and human factors such as experience, attitude and fatigue also, but the Paper focuses on the issue of training.

Training appears to be adequate; ANOVA tests show no difference in levels of awareness. Attitude towards pollution prevention practices appear to diminish with increased training, though not significantly. From another Chi-square test, it was seen that involvement in pollution violation incidents does not relate to the quantity of training imparted. Further tests indicate attitude and fatigue as influencing causal factors for shipboard oil pollution violations. Training may be nominally improved with simulator packages and by upgrading trainers’ knowledge. Environmental protection can be treated as a separate subject in the curriculum.