Information

28th graduation ceremony held in Jamaica

The 28th annual graduation ceremony of the Caribbean Maritime Institute (CMI) was a celebration of progress and success. The prestigious affair, held at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel on 12 November, was an ideal occasion for the CMI to showcase its vision and mission in a tangible way.

The CMI’s deputy executive director, Vivette Grant, said: “It was an occasion not only to celebrate the outcome of the tireless effort of CMI’s graduands, staff and management but to fellowship, in a closed setting, with the institute’s friends, partners and well-wishers. It was an afternoon of excellence where cameras clicked as local and overseas media toppled over themselves to get the best shot of what was an historic event for the CMI.”

Guests included the Prime Minister of Jamaica, Orette Bruce Golding, and the minister responsible for the institute, Michael Henry. Members of the diplomatic corps as well as personalities from the Caribbean Shipping Association, including the immediate past president, Fernando Rivera, were also there.

Among the students present were the first cohort of B.Sc. graduands in port management and logistics and supply chain management and B.Eng. graduands in industrial systems. A total of 148 graduands marched, including those in the Diploma in International Shipping and Logistics programme and in the Associate of Applied Science Degree programme.
“It was a graduation with a difference, as we were not graduating just traditional degree holders but graduates of very rare calibre and in unusual programmes,” said Ms Grant.

One item regarded as fundamental to the CMI curriculum is the Industrial Systems Operation and Maintenance (ISOM) programme, which produces an engineer capable of handling various aspects of this discipline. CMI thus produces one engineer capable of handling work that would otherwise require two or three engineering specialists.

“This translates into a lot of savings for the employer,” said Ms Grant. “Our engineers can work both on land and at sea, which in itself means a high degree of adaptability and employability.”

Strategy

The basic philosophy that drives the entire operations, vision and mission of the CMI is the Blue Ocean Strategy. This is demonstrated in the scope and depth of the institute’s strategic alliances with Ivy League institutions worldwide, both within and outside the maritime sector. The memoranda of understanding that give a framework to these alliances are “fast bearing fruit” according to Ms Grant.

Evidence

“The scope and depth of the MOU were demonstrated by the numbers, origins and profiles of persons and organisations in attendance at the ceremony,” she said. The evidence, she said, was in the list of attendees who collectively represented the overseas employment community for the CMI. They included:

• Peter Harren, chairman of Harren & Partners (Germany)
• Capt Heiko Felderhoff; from Belgium
• Capt Emmanuel Aguirre, of Exmar Shipmanagement
• Walter Van de Werf, president of Luxury Yacht Group
• Rupert Connor
• Frank Wellnitz
• Helmut Heinrich, of Caribbean Feeder Services
• Capt Andy Schorlemmer, president of Zim America
• Ramon Shaul
• Nehama Bikovshy and Amos Aloni, vice-presidents of Zim.

The institute has a high placement record, with 90 per cent of its B.Sc. and B.Eng. students gainfully employed or pursuing higher studies. In addition, all students who have successfully completed the Officer in Charge of Watch programmes are on contract at sea or awaiting sea service.

Addressing to the graduation ceremony, executive director Fritz Pinnock said the CMI was “a testament of an agile, tertiary institution committed to serving the needs of the industry”.

He went on: “Twenty-eight years ago this noble institution was established through a partnership between the Government of the Kingdom of Norway and the Government of Jamaica under what was then called the Jamaica Maritime Training Institute (JMTI) with the specific mandate to train Jamaican seafarers to satisfy the crewing needs of five merchant ships operated under the Jamaica Merchant Marine. Little did the organisers know that, by establishing the only such institution in the region, other Caribbean nationals would come in droves, knocking at the door. This was the first wind of change to hit the institution. Over time, the institution struggled through two more name changes – Jamaica Maritime Institute to the now Caribbean Maritime Institute. What will be the new name in the future, considering a new wind change, as we now have students from as far as Peru, Turkey and Suriname, just to name a few? We present to you our first cohort of Bachelor’s degree students in the following disciplines: logistics and supply chain management; port management; and industrial systems operations and maintenance.”

Total crew

The CMI stands ready to provide total crew, according to Mr Pinnock.

He said the Bachelor’s degree in security management had been a success, with 36 participants in the programme. Students include personnel from the Jamaica Defence Force, Jamaica Combined Police Force and various private security companies. In delivering this programme, the CMI has collaborated with Kingston Wharves Ltd and its subsidiary, Security Administrators Ltd (SAL).

“I am pleased to report to you that over 83 per cent of them are gainfully employed,” said Mr Pinnock.

“Last year, despite the recession, the CMI recorded 100 per cent placement of our Phase II seafaring cadets and officers. Cadets are joining ships from all five continents as far as Australia, Dubai, China among others. CMI is now a global brand.”

Achievements

Among its special achievements, the CMI executive director listed the following:

• Exmar: four scholarships awarded to top cadets from the 2007-2008 batch currently pursuing Phase 3. These persons willtake up guaranteed employment at the end of their course in December.

• Four scholarships, worth CAD20,000 each, from the Canadian government, consisting of two Grenadians at CMI and two CMI students, Alesha Foster and Candice Williams, at the Memorial University of Newfoundland.

• CSA Monica Silvera Scholarship, worth US$26,000, awarded to Grenadian student Wallace Collins for M.Sc. degree in logistics and supply chain management (regional programme based in Barbados) where the CMI will have other students from Suriname, Guyana, Antigua, Anguilla, Dominica and the British Virgin Islands, among others.

• Donation of three classrooms, worth over JAD12 million, by ZIM/Kingston Logistics Centre. The new classroom block will be named in their honour.

• Donation of JAD3 million by Musson Jamaica Ltd towards CMI entrance and security upgrade.

• Airports Authority of Jamaica undertaking a beautification project at the CMI entrance.

• Luxury Yacht Group will donate life-rafts and equipment

• New breakthrough with cadet berths: Rickmers; Seaboard Marine; Juemmetor & Hafentor (Harold Kropp).

Through the efforts of trade envoy Dr Aloysius Tay, the CMI has signed an MOU with Jupiter Innovations, one of the leading distance education providers in South East Asia, to roll out the CMI On-Class distance education system.

Mr Pinnock said: “I am pleased to report that we have paid for 140 new computers and five new state-of-the-art blade servers and [we are] currently laying fibre optic cables which will make us one of the Caribbean’s most technologically advanced tertiary institutions. Added to this, over the next two years we are projecting the addition of 10 new state-of-the-art simulators to reaffirm our leadership position as the region’s simulator centre of excellence. We are now working with ST Electronics, the South East’s leading simulator manufacturer, for the development of this equipment.”

Other developments mentioned by Mr Pinnock include a MOU with Nova Scotia Community College to set up a CMI School of Fisheries and Marine Research. Pending, he said, was the signing of an MOU with the Peruvian Merchant Marine Academy that would provide for two CMI students to go to Peru during the year ahead on a full scholarship.

Quality assurance

“Our next conquest will be on 15 December when we will become a DNV accredited institution and ISO 9001: 2008 – the Caribbean’s first and only degree-granting institution with such status,” he said.

In the year ahead, CMI expects to lay the foundation for the launch of a CMI Asia campus, the executive director disclosed.
In his keynote address, the Prime Minister recognised the peculiar and unusual nature of CMI’s programmes and the capacity of the programmes to meet present and future market demands locally and internationally. He bemoaned the fact that much of the work done by CMI had remained a “lit candle under a bushel” and implored the CMI to bring its programmes and activities to light. He also endorsed the view of the executive director that the government’s
investment in CMI had been well spent.