MAN Rector unveils plans for Maritime Academy

Newly appointed Rector of the Maritime Academy of Nigeria (MAN), Oron, Commodore Emmanuel Duja Effedua, has unveiled plans to raise the standard of teaching, learning and infrastructure at the nation’s foremost maritime training institution.
Speaking in Lagos, he said, under his watch, the academy will remain focused on delivering on its core mandates to train and certify employable seafarers in line with globally acceptable standards.
He decried the refusal by ship-owners to employ graduates of the academy over alleged poor standards of training adding that the academy suffered a decline in standards when it started pursuing becoming a university.
Effedua, a retired officer of the Nigerian Navy, added that the academy could retain its name and excel in standards to the level of awarding degrees without necessarily altering its original nomenclature.
He cited examples with institutions like the Nigeria Defence Academy, Zaria and the Police Academy in Kano, that presently award degrees without getting derailed with a process of name change to a university.
He said the school can still achieve a degree awarding status but focus should not just be about the title of certificates being awarded adding that there was need to achieve and sustain full compliance with International Maritime Organisation training standard in all its programmes.
The Rector said the academy needed to restructure for optimum productivity and efficiency as it presently has about 800 senior staff members and a hundred junior workers, which is imbalanced and affects productivity.
He said it was time all staff of the academy should justify their presence as the system would not condone persons whom he described are intellectually vacant
On the Interim Management Committee of the academy being chaired by Chief Adebayo Sarumi, a former Managing Director of Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Effedua lauded the initiative of the Transport Minister to set it up.