Certification vs Competency: Evaluating skill within Towing Operations
Ask any education professional about qualifications and skills and it is guaranteed that they will tell you that certification and competency are two very different subjects.
Educationalist, Professor Stephen Heppell wrote: “There is a long history of the tension between Certification and Competency. Some of that falls into a debate about the role of knowledge. Should it precede practical experience. Should it parallel practical experience?. Should it be built on the understandings gained from practical experience?
Of course passive learning, in a classroom is not useless. ‘learning for its own sake’ can be very rewarding. But for authentic skills to develop, for a grounded understanding of knowledge, for the insight of key nuances within that knowledge, for the ability to apply understanding to unexpected problems, learning needs to be situational and the accreditation of it needs to be more than just momentary.
Perhaps most importantly, when learning is divorced from actual competency, it often falls behind practice and the artificial classroom version excludes many potentially competent professionals. The artificial curriculum just never seems to progress fast enough, or be subtle enough to represent current practice. This is particularly true where practice is evolving, where technology has a key component, or where the regulations and protocols governing practice are themselves changing.
Perhaps in summary the contrast is between someone waiting to attempt a classroom based assessment saying “I hope there are no surprises on the test paper” and someone who is having their competency assessed in a real situation saying “Well, I wasn’t expecting that. But I learned so much from having to deal with it”
- Does holding a certificate mean you are competent?
The UK Administration [Maritime and Coastguard Authority], closely supported by industry has been adapting its methods for managing the assessment of competency within Maritime for many years, a ball which after starting slowly to roll is now picking up terrific momentum..
The age of ‘Blended learning’ has sparked a wider review into how maritime training within the UK is conducted. In fact the MCA now has its own Assistant Director for Modernising Maritime Education; Dr Carole Davis, who joined the team in 2021.
“Our intention is to provide flexible and robust awards and career pathways within the industry and to further connect training to safety and well-being. The vision behind the new strategy will be informed by emerging new technologies and led by current and future industry needs. We believe that education should be outcome focused, using evidence-based approaches to training and assessment.”
Dr Carole Davis, UK Ships Register website. Published 23/03/2021
Tug crews, are by nature, primarily employed for their outstanding levels of situational awareness, hand-eye coordination, communication and foresight. These skills, paramount to successful vessel operations, are not necessarily able to be taught in the classroom and thus neither can it be expected that this can be effectively assessed in an orthodox onshore test environment either.
Back in 2013 the MCA first introduced the Voluntary Towing Endorsement Scheme [MGN 468 (M)], an on board, operational assessment of skills, knowledge, management and communication. “The MCA recognises that certificates it issues under the International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping 1978, as amended, (STCW) [and those issued domestically] are generic to the industry and there is no requirement for a separate statutory towage endorsement. However, after consulting with industry the need for a voluntary towage endorsement scheme was identified. Voluntary towage endorsements will:
- assist owners and operators engaged in towage work, or harbour masters, contractors and others when risk assessing towage operations; and
- enable individuals to demonstrate that they are suitably experienced and competent to carry out such work.”
MCA MGN 468 (M)
The Voluntary Towing Endorsement scheme has gone from strength to strength ever since its launch and has become a prime example of how assessment on board the vessel, during the towing operation, provides a more natural and relatable scenario to those being assessed than that experienced in the classroom or test centre.
This style of assessment has lead not only to a workforce that is evaluated on its merit rather than its academic ability but also to a workforce that remains employed for those key vocational skills that we previously highlighted (rather than seafarers facing educational bottle-necks due to a requirement to be trained and assessed in a methodology of academic norm).
Where does this go next? Well, successes of physical and situational based assessments are being widely noted within seafaring, from the brilliant Virtual Reality suites and simulators that are now becoming more and more globally accessible, to the hands-on skills and training learned during many STCW short courses. But, will we see more of this approach being taken when assessing for certificates of competency? The triumph of the RYA’s Yacht Master CoC series is a good demonstration of how practical skills are being assessed simultaneously with a demonstration of prior theoretical learning; via blended learning (online and face-to-face) are we presented a new opportunity to be able to achieve similar when studying the various modules to gain Internationally recognised STCW CoCs?
I do hope so, watch this space.
