The revision of IMO Model Course 3.17 by the International Maritime Lecturers’ Association

The third and final meeting of the International Maritime Lecturers’ Association (IMLA) Working Group for the revision of IMO’s Model Course 3.17, Maritime English, was held at Shanghai Maritime University in the second week of October, hosted by Prof. Jin Yongxing, Chairman of IMLA and Vice President of SMU. Some 20 experts attended the three meetings in Shanghai and London during the revision process, many of whom were WMU graduates or closely connected with WMU. Chen Yuli (MET 2009) was the project coordinator throughout and WMU Associate Prof Clive Cole, Honorary Secretary of IMLA, chaired the three meetings. In addition, there was extensive global input through a questionnaire as well as at the International Maritime English Conference held in July in the Netherlands where Mr Milhar Fuazadeen, Head of IMO’s Maritime Training and Human Element Section, participated as advisor to the revision.

The purpose of the IMO model courses is, in IMO’s words, “to assist maritime training institutes and their teaching staff in organising and introducing new training courses or in enhancing, updating or supplementing existing training material where the quality and effectiveness of the training courses may be improved.” The revision of all model courses is required under the Manila Amendments to the STCW Convention and, as an NGO, it was appropriate for IMLA to offer to take on this task during the IMO HTW1 sub-committee earlier this year. The revision period was exactly six months but despite the short time available, and the complexity of merging individual approaches and opinions, the final draft was submitted on time on October 31. An IMO Validation Panel will now review the revision work and, if all goes to plan, the HTW2 sub-committee will approve the new edition at its meeting in early February 2015.