Crewing & Training Sub-Committee
Ships are incredibly complex and expensive industrial assets. Only qualified and competent seafarers can ensure efficient, safe, secure and environmentally sound ship operations and maintenance.
The Crewing & Training Sub-Committee is the forum for experts from ICS Members to consider and discuss seafarer training and certification matters, as well as issues related to the crewing of ships. Members may choose nominate a representative from shipping companies, such as fleet training or personnel managers.
About the C&T Sub-Committee
Ships are incredibly complex and expensive industrial assets. Only qualified and competent seafarers can ensure efficient, safe, secure and environmentally sound ship operations and maintenance.
Technological, operational, regulatory, and even commercial, developments are constantly shaping the skills and competencies required of seafarers to perform their functions onboard ships. As a result, seafarer training is an important operating and business consideration for shipowners and operators, and it is of the utmost important that seafarers have received the appropriate training and hold the correct certification for the specific ship type and/or its operations.
The work of the Crewing & Training Sub-Committee is instrumental in ensuring that the human element in shipping is taken fully into account. The Sub-Committee’s core task is to contribute to sound global minimum competency and certification standards for seafarers, meeting the needs of the shipping industry and robust enough to accommodate technological and operational developments.
Tjitso Westra, Chair ICS Crewing and Training Sub-Committee
Aims and objectives
The Crewing & Training Sub-Committee considers the most pressing matters facing shipowners and operators with regards to seafarer training, seafarer certification and ship’s manning, which includes monitoring and engaging with:
- Developments at IMO in relation to amendments to the STCW Convention;
- Implementation and application of the STCW Convention by Administrations, including Flag States and seafarer supply States; and
- Developments in ship systems and equipment to identify any new areas of training that may be required for seafarers in support of efficient, safe, secure and environmentally sound ship operations.
The Crewing & Training Sub-Committee enables ICS to advocate for international standards for seafarer training and an IMO Convention that are fit for purpose and continue to meet the needs of shipowners for qualified and competent seafarers to safely man and operate their ships.
Connections
ICS actively participates and engages with the work of the IMO Sub-Committee on Human Element, Training and Watchkeeping (HTW), and it is the ICS Crewing & Training Sub-Committee that considers the key issues on the HTW Sub-Committee agenda and formulates the requisite ICS positions or policies.
The Crewing & Training Sub-Committee also provides inputs to ICS engagement with all seafarer-related issues that arise on the agenda of other IMO committees and sub-committees, as well as inputs to national and regional discussions in order for ICS to provide the perspective of international shipowners and operators.
Related content
Seafarer wellbeing under threat amid geopolitical conflict
Captain Abdulkareem Al Masabi: Shipping’s shared prosperity
MSC 108-7-2 – Security in the Southern Red Sea and Gulf of Aden