Maritime symposium tackles skills challenges

City of Glasgow College’s recent international maritime symposium focused on the skills challenges facing the maritime sector.

“We came away with some great new ideas on how to teach the next generation, including ways to improve diversity, industry retention rates, and the use of technology.”

Industry leaders and academics debated how college education can offer practical and innovative solutions.

Paul Little, Principal and Chief Executive at City of Glasgow College, said: “Jobs within the maritime sector ensure 96% of UK trade. Ships officers represent a key source of talent for these roles, but developing this talent pool is at risk from a number of factors, including demographics, skills development, recruitment and retention.

“Our maritime symposium rightly examined these factors, as key speakers and delegates shared their experiences and began working on insightful solutions.”

Iain MacKinnon, Secretary to the Maritime Skills Alliance, said: “We hear the phrase ‘thought leadership’ a lot, but this was surely it. We had a really stimulating, ‘big picture’, opener from Principal Little, then a series of different takes on some challenging issues, all carefully put together by the college within a framework that reminded us talk is cheap and what really counts is to make progress through effective action.”

Nick Chubb, founder of maritime innovation agency, Thetius, and a key speaker at the symposium, outlined why events such as this are so important: “Creating and implementing an ambitious skills strategy is one of the key challenges for the future of the UK maritime industry. Shipping is changing fast, and it is crucial that we have people with the right skills, not just to deal with these changes, but to drive them forward.

“What was interesting about the college’s symposium was the depth and honesty of the conversations and debate. We came away with some great new ideas on how to teach the next generation, including ways to improve diversity, industry retention rates, and the use of technology. The real challenge now comes in implementing those ideas, and I look forward to seeing how City of Glasgow College and other industry stakeholders take the lead in implementing change.”

City of Glasgow College is currently celebrating 50 years of delivering maritime and marine engineering education and training on the banks of the River Clyde. The Maritime 50 Symposium took place across Thursday 3 and Friday 4 October at its Riverside campus which has replaced the college’s legacy institution, the Glasgow College of Nautical Studies, formally opened on 4 October 1969 by Lord Louis Mountbatten.