Ocean Industrial Education: A Strategy for Applied Curriculum and Instruction in 1980s

This report presents current status of the U.S. Marine education. Also, it is an attempt to draw attention of the marine community regarding establishment of a more practical occupational curriculum geared for training paraprofessionals for the industry in the 1980s and beyond. Despite existing marine training program in Texas, Florida, California and Washington, there remains a lack of national level co- ordination. Furthermore, marine paraprofessional related education has not yet received its deserved share within the frame of the National Ocean Policy. The present status emphasizing trends and future prospects of marine training has been explored by Abel (1978), Bhatt (1978 and 1979), Leipper (1977) and Ogilive (1977). Also, in its recent publication, U.S. Ocean Policy: Status and Issues (1978), Department of Commerce has addressed the problem. It is recommended that a nationwide pilot marine training of paraprofessionals be established under the direction of a National Review Board comprising competent professionals from academia, industry, and government spheres. The pilot training must emphasize supplying a new crop of paraprofessionals for emerging industries of the 1980s, such as deep-sea mining, new energy technologies, waste disposal, environment, and other related marine occupational fields. The marine paraprofessional´s training should be conducted on a national level adopting a consortium style format. The U.S. Marine paraprofessional consortium may be divided on a regional level: New England (Region I), Eastern Coast (Region II), the Gulf coast (Region III), the Pacific coast (Region IV), the Great Lakes (Region V), and the Hinterland (Region VI). These subconsortia, if necessary, should rotate faculty, students, and in some cases, facilities to meet a growing demand of skilled manpower for a particular ocean industry. Under the consortium format, instruction to trainees may be imparted in a variety of ways through internship, including aboard-the-sh- - ip, contract training, or through a combination of these. The two-year and senior institutional joint training programs must be encouraged. The ocean occupational training must be assessed periodically by the proposed National Curriculum Review Board.