Voluntary onboard tests improve training standards

Videotel Marine International, in association with the Chemical Distribution Institute (CDI), is pioneering a new voluntary Crew Knowledge and Proficiency (CKP)

Testing System by randomly testing officers’ operational knowledge. These short tests are designed to complement the crew’s existing training programme and provide strong evidence of continuous objective assessment of officers.
Capt. Milind Karkhanis, Vice President, Videotel Training Services, has been instrumental in working with CDI to develop this project.  “What the industry needs is a globally consistent system of quality measurement,” he says. “With this system, the individual ship operator can benchmark the CKP of his officers against the world chemical and gas tanker fleet average. This provides a genuine measurement of performance, allowing those fleets demonstrating high quality standards to receive the recognition they deserve.”

Chief Officers, Second Officers, Third Officers, Second Engineers, Third Engineers or their equivalent ranks are eligible to undertake the testing. Selection of the Officers is made randomly by computer and the checks are carried out on a one-to-one basis onboard by an Inspector via pre-determined questions programmed into a laptop. A CKP Review Committee has been set up to review the progress, results and statistics of the CKP database on a quarterly basis.
CKP Testing constitutes part of Videotel’s VOA (Videotel Online Assessment), an internet based program designed to help assess the competency of individual seafarers by delivering assessment based questions. Assessments can be set up by selecting questions from an extensive and growing database which, in turn, can then be assigned to selected seafarers. The assessments are completed on line enabling employers to identify the strengths and weaknesses of their seafarers both prior-to and during employment. The results demonstrate how they are progressing and identify further individual’s training requirements as part of a company’s overall competency management programme.
Source: Videotel