The Marine Academy: Troubles and reforms
Mr A H Shafiuddin Ahmed, London, UK
The recent revolt by the Marine Academy senior year cadets and their desertion of the campus at Juldia, Chittagong is deplorable. Nevertheless this presents a unique window of opportunity to reform the unnecessarily bully-ridden military style system which is totally anachronistic in any modern merchant fleet. I was the first full time Bengali Marine Engineering Instructor there in 1965 and had come across first hand many evidences of bullying by the senior year cadets on the juniors. I myself being trained in England and qualifying by shipboard service and periodic professional examinations in UK found no need for any military style training in my profession. To my knowledge after the creation of Bangladesh the bullying got even worse as the West Pakistan cadets disappeared from the scene leaving only a singular polarisation of seniors versus the juniors. Obviously fresh recruits need some training to smarten up and make them suitable for sea service, especially service hopefully on foreign ships, but a waste of two full years from a person's chosen career is unconscionable. As the senior second year cadets have revolted and have already left the campus this is the ideal time to reform the system by cutting out one year. This will eliminate any conflict between senior versus junior and the cadets will have a head start of about 15 months in joining early a meaningful career. Resources released by curtailing the training could be beneficially directed towards coaching for the subjects of professional qualifications. These could be split up into suitable educational modules by consultation with the Open University of Bangladesh. The cadets on shore study leave can complete these modules towards their professional competence and perhaps later those who want it, can pursue further module courses with the OU towards a degree in marine engineering or nautical science (as is the practice in UK).
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