Maritime School exports teaching

The New Zealand Maritime School has won $2 million worth of contracts to run courses outside New Zealand next year.

The Auckland-based unit of the Manukau Institute of Technology, which trains officers for container ships and other maritime skills, is exporting its teachers and courses to boost income, which is at present about $3.7 million.

It won the contracts against international competition. Director Tim Wilson said only a shortage of suitable teachers was limiting the acceptance of more overseas work.

One contract from the Asian Development Bank for training in Tuvalu was won in a tender against 22 schools.

The school also has $1.5 million of contracts with the Secretariat for the Pacific Community to provide in-country human resource development and build up maritime training schools in the Pacific.

"Although we are going in to train the seafarers, we are also trying to develop the schools themselves," Wilson said.

In the past the school has won contracts from the United Kingdom's Department for International Development.

The school has a simulator of a ship's bridge in Auckland and it has a portable simulator for overseas contracts.

The school offers logistics training and is developing courses on security because the International Maritime Organisation and US border authorities are moving to improve security.

Further reading: nzherald.co.nz/marine