The Philippines Maritime Academy of Asia and the Pacific (MAAP) has opened a new campus dedicated to training seafarers who will work on board Japanese ships.

The JSU-IMMAJ Campus, the second for MAAP, was opened on April 7 in a ceremony attended by Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. She was joined by government, management and labor officials from both countries who are engaged in the project. Also present were 250 MAAP students who were enrolled in the inaugural class to be graduated in 2013.

Both the labour and management in Japan have been working to nurture seafarers for the Japanese merchant fleet by offering scholarships to MAAP students. They hope that the launch of the second campus will help further increase the number of such seafarers. The project is symbolic of the Japanese shipping operators’ desire to get a stable supply of competent seafarers who can assist in safe navigation of their ships.

Its training course will start in June. MAAP’s annual enrollment capacity has doubled with the opening of the second campus. Some MAAP students are employed by European owners and ship management companies upon graduation. But most of them study on Japanese scholarships and join Japanese shipping and ship management firms upon finishing their curriculum at the school. This is why the JSU-IMMAJ Campus project was partly financed by the training levy fund and welfare fund set up by the management and labor of both countries under their labor convention for foreign seafarers.