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Naval Academy N. J. Vaptsarov
125 Years of Bulgarian Maritime
Education:
A Current View
Captain Iliya Petrov Peev,
Bulgarian Naval
Reserve
Assistant
Professor
Naval Academy N.Y.Vaptsarov
During its 125
years long history, the Naval
Academy N. Y. Vaptsarov,
proved itself a leader in Bulgarian maritime education. The Academy is
approved by the International Maritime Organization of the United Nations
in London.
Many difficulties and successes have been filling the long way of the
establishment and the development of Naval Academy, which well-earned
received national and international acknowledgement: a place on the White
List of the IMO and a Certificate of Quality ISO 9002.4 and ISO 9000:2000
from the Lloyd Register with institutional accreditation from The National
Accreditation and Assessment Agency of the Ministerial Council of Bulgaria.
Thanks to the unique traditions and potential the Naval
Academy possesses the ability to
realize its main mission: to train commanding and operational staff for the
Navy and for the Merchant
Sea and Inland Fleet.
A number of countries such as Japan,
Germany, Turkey,
Greece etc. demonstrated a high interest in this experience during the
anniversary year 2006.
I. Short
historical information about establishment and development of Naval Academy
as a national symbol of Bulgaria.
After the
Bulgarian liberation from Turkey
in 1878, the country needed a sea outlet.
Bulgaria has a
long Black Sea coastline and the country needed a Navy and Merchant Fleet
to fly the national flag in the World
Ocean. This was how
the newly liberated country begun to affirm its identity but this need
required marine staff training. The Naval Academy
was established on the 9th of January in Rouse. Naval Academy
N. Y. Vaptsarov
was founded as a technical school first but it started training marine
staff soon. The Bulgarian marine officers, trained at Naval Academy,
replaced the foreign captains and engineers managing the Bulgarian ships.
They won the marine labor market competition as soon as the beginning of
the Twentieth Century.
The
establishment and the development of Naval Academy
N. Y. Vaptsarov
were based on national marine laws. The school moved to Varna
as a Mechanical
School of the Navy in
1900 and received high technical school rights in 1904. The marine school
received higher military school status in 1942 and trained a staff for the
Navy and for the Merchant fleet at sea and on the river Danube.
Higher engineer naval school status has been given to The Marine School in
1956 and all the trainees for the Navy and for the Merchant fleet started
receiving engineering qualifications. This qualification process continues
and fully corresponds to the standards for international maritime engineers
(IMarE). The International Maritime Organization
of the United Nations Organization audited the school for the first time in
1960 and since then internationally recognized diplomas for maritime
specialists have been issued.
Since the
establishment of Naval
Academy N. Y. Vaptsarov
a few basic traditions were developed and they have been preserved till
nowadays:
A) Combining undivided
authority with academism.
B) Integrated staff training
for both Navy and Merchant fleet.
C) Training in marine style of
life.
D) Common theoretical training
and sailing practice.
E) Adaptation to the new
requirements and high quality of maritime education; affirmation of the school
as a center of maritime education in Bulgaria.
F) Strictly following the
international standards regarding training maritime officer’s staff.
These
traditions define the content of the main motto of the Naval Academy
N. Y. Vaptsarov:
“Duty, Honor, Dignity, Professionalism.” Thanks to
these traditions the quality of the Bulgarian maritime education at Naval Academy N. Y. Vaptsarov conforms to the
national requirements, standards of IMO, London, London Institute of
Maritime Engineers (IMarE), International
Standards Organization (ISO), Lloyd Register, and the STCW’95 convention.
II. The Naval Academy N. Y. Vaptsarov adjusted its training
programmes to meet the new IMO requirements.
The Naval Academy N. Y. Vaptsarov is the first unique
school, training during its 125 years long history staff together both for
the needs of The Navy and The Merchant Fleet. This unique experience has
been preserved under the new IMO requirements. The school plans and the
curriculum were quickly reorganized in correspondence to the Seafers’ Training Certification and Watchkeeping
Code 78/95 (STCW’ 95 Code), placing the human factor at the center of the
marine profession! IMO, Lloyd Register, IAMU and the National Assembly
recognize the Bulgarian military and civil education at the Maritime
school! Merchant fleet staff training must include special marine endurance
elements, which impose a specific training and educationаl
regime. During the naval education and the service at the Navy a number of
valuable personal characteristics, basic for the marine profession are
being developed: ability to live and
work reliable in socially and physically closed environment; capacity for
long living together and stable professional activity in conditions of
personal satiety and sensor deprivation; team work skills and habits; high
psychic stability; skills for bearing privations and coping with extreme
situations; possessing discipline, punctuality, adaptation, personal responsibility,
communicating skills, logical and critical thinking; ability to accept
reasonable and realized risk; capability for adequate estimation of the
situation and taking relevant decisions in deficit of time; purposefulness.
The Naval Academy N. Y. Vaptsarov trainees prepare to
manage sophisticated, technical systems and contemporary ship crews (often
multinational) in extreme conditions. Using the education plans and
curricula approved by the IMO in 1998, the Naval Academy
emphasized these fields, methods and forms of training, which comprise a
quality course of study:
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1. Environment and regime of the
maritime education.
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2. Perfect organization
structure, organization of the study process, study-planning documentation
and system of quality.
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3. High quality
academic staff with aspiration for scientific researches and high
achievements.
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4.
Classical and modern methods for simulator training and sailing
practice, which build up high professionalism and abilities for crisis
management:
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1. Environment and regime of
maritime education:
The entire
environment and the system of training and education as well as the
physical, marine and psychic endurance of the cadets and students define
the development of the professional mariners. The maritime education is
accomplished in regime closely emulating conditions at sea. There are two
possibilities of training – with government sponsorship or on own support
and payment. The marine profession demands education under “cadets
conditions” with harsh regime of live and activity, closed to the ship’s
conditions, hierarchy and relationships. The cadets and the students
studying at the Naval Academy N.Y. Vaptsarov have chosen a difficult career, filled
with privations and harsh life conditions. The maritime profession requires
strong longing for intellectual and physical work. The maritime officers
are responsible for the safety of the cruise, the technical equipment and
the crew member’s and passenger’s lives.
The knowledge,
the experience, the life energy and the sense of the duty help them passing
the probation at sea successfully and to meet the extreme trust. The cadets
keep the ship hierarchy rules, live in a campus, study the ship language
and marine terminology, learn to live in small
groups in social isolation out of the outside world, go through special
systems of psychic and physic endurance during their education. They are
trained in swimming, rowing and yachting. In that kind of environment the
trainees learn obedience, punctuality, discipline, personal responsibility,
leadership and ability to make decisions in dynamic and unpredictable
circumstances. This is how the marine character hardens and the cadets gain
marine spirit.
There is a
newly built up system at the school about developing the cadets and the
students as leaders. Books about the leadership have been issued,
multileveled programs about creating and developing leadership
characteristics have been set up.
Game based
methods of education are widely used – conducting situational professional
games in English, during the psychology classes, and tactics with the navy.
The whole information needed about the new requirements, tendencies and
achievements in the international maritime sailing have been received at
the Naval Academy through the Internet. The
staff includes in the lectures information about the latest technical
achievements, and the achievements in the science and world. IMO courses
are being organized and the IMO requirements are being studied.
2. Perfect organization
structure, organization of the study process, study-planning documentation
and system of quality:
The education
and training are conducted corresponding to the national and international legislation
and standards requirements. All the candidates go through strong system of
selection based on intellectual, physic, psychic and moral characteristics,
motivation and values which guarantees yet on the entry high quality of
trainees.
Two faculties
function at the Naval
Academy: “Navigating”
and “Engineering” as well as a Post graduate qualification department. The
built up faculty organization proved its advantages. The contribution to
improving the quality of the training-educational process and the
scientific development of the lecturer’s staff is clearly seen.
3. High quality academic staff
with aspiration for scientific researches and high achievements:
Traditional
research emphases, related to the problems of the Navy and the Merchant
Fleet, exist at the Naval
Academy. Modern
courses such as: psychology and psychophysiology of labor specific to
maritime transport; diagnosing and controlling the electronic systems;
increasing the exploitation reliability and safety of the maritime
transport systems; new educational technologies, have been developed during
the last few years along with the classical areas of training and
education. The results of the courses are tested via training simulator.
The requirements of the International Convention STCW’95 and The IMO Model
courses have dictated the new content in the scientific work.
The lecturers
keep regular scientific contacts with the maritime academies and
universities in United Kingdom,
Germany, Greece, Italy,
Poland, Romania, Russia,
USA, Turkey, Ukraine,
Hungary, France, Holland,
Croatia, Sweden,
Japan etc. Lecturers on specialization from Naval
Academy raise their qualification
by participating the British Council program
“English for peaceful aims” and the courses organized by Language Institute
of USA and held in San Antonio,
Texas.
There are more
then 50 publications in the foreign scientific press and participations at
scientific conferences overseas of the lecturers from the Naval Academy
during the last few years. They
actively participate at international scientific forums, organized in the
country, such as the annual celebration The Month of the Science in Varna, Black Sea
2006, the International Scientific-practical Conference about the
development and the problems of the aquatic transport in Bulgaria. Anniversary
Scientific Session was held on the 17-18th of May 2006 and The XIIIth International Scientific-Technical Conference
Trans & MOTAUTO’ 06 was held on the 25-28th October 2006, Varna.
Two National Conferences of
Maritime education “BulMet’ 2003” and “BulMet’ 2005” was held under the patronage of the
president of Republic
of Bulgaria Georgi Parvanov.
The Naval Academy owns publishing center,
specialized in publishing academic literature – scientific, technical,
military, and humanitarian. The scientific editions are being republished
by civil publishers and there is increasing interest about them by the
students and the lecturers from other universities. Naval
Academy is the biggest publisher
of marine scientific-technical literature in Bulgaria.
The scientific researches are
closely tied to the educational process. The cadets and the students are
involved in doing scientific work.
4. Classical and modern methods
for simulator training and sailing practice, which build up high professionalism
and abilities for crisis management:
The curricula of all
specialties at the school have been renewed according to the STCW’95
requirements; the training at the simulator has been activated – navigating
the ship, radar and ARPA simulators, electronic charts, GMDSS, and
survivability.
According to
the regulation 1.12 of STCW’95 using simulators, while training ship
specialists is mandatory. The simulator complexes for the navigators and
engineers at Naval Academy include the situational simulators ECMS
(Center’s Environmental Crisis Management Simulator) and CMTS (Center for
Marine Training and Safety) demanded by the world maritime standards.
A) The mechanics have available
Nord Control Simulator from Norway
which made impression even on the NATO officers. The lecturer’s had
upgraded the simulator’s hardware and software, which considerably
increased its characteristics and possibilities.
B) The navigators have
available the biggest planetarium at the Balkans and a modern navigating
simulator.
The cadets and
the students as leaders of teams and ship crews learn strategies of coping
with incidents with guns, collisions at sea, destructive human behavior –
panic, fear, distress, group disorganization in correspondence with STCW’95
Convention and the approved school plans and curricula by IMO since 1998.
We use the following methods at our practice: including in scenarios of
natural disasters and accidents at sea, crisis situations, solving cases of
destructive human behavior and coping with group disorders, training for
possessing skills of acting if accidents with naval weapons occur,
psychological trainings on leadership at extreme situations.
The standards
of IMO about this kind of activity have different nuances, well known by
the lecturers and the trainees: Emergency Preparedness, Environmental
Crisis Management, Spill Management Team and Crowd Management. This
activity is strictly defined by STCW’95, Regulations number AV/2 and AV/3.
The training is accomplished according to IMO standards through the
following methods and forms: lectures at the classrooms, role plays,
psychological trainings, practical crowd management scenarios.
The management
of human behavior in ship environment is included in the school plans and
curricula at the Naval Academy, because these questions are regulated in
the IMO model courses: Model Course “Human Relationships“
(IMO number 1.21); Model Course “Human Resources Management“ (IMO
number 5.04); Model Course “Personal Survival“ (IMO number 1.19); The
International Management Code for the Safety Operation of Ships and for
Pollution Prevention. [International Safety Management (ISM) Code].
Trainees who successfully completed the course receive certificate Personal
Safety and Social Responsibilities in according to the rules VI/1 and
А-VI/1-4 of STCW’95. The lecturers from Naval Academy
N. Y. Vaptsarov
are one of the first in the world who published a book for the cadets and
students training of IMO standards – “Human relationships and Social
Responsibilities”, parallel with the implementation of the new school plans
and curriculua, based upon STCW’95 in year 1998.
There are 15 courses at the Naval
Academy based upon
the STCW’95 standards training captains and mechanics from the merchant
ships and many civil specialists.
Conclusions:
1) The symbiosis between the
maritime education for the Navy and for the Merchant fleet is unique in Bulgaria.
This process was based upon government concern and the national maritime
politics. It has to be preserved and developed, because it brings high
profit in currency and adds quality to our national culture – military,
maritime, technical, technological, transport, educational, scientific,
economical, financial, commercial and spiritual!
2) The integrative education of
cadets and students for the Navy and for the Merchant fleet at Naval Academy N. Y. Vaptsarov is in interest of our
national security and will contribute to our quicker incorporation to NATO.
3) Naval Academy is in
condition to satisfy the increased needs of marine officers for the world
maritime market. It is ready to continue educating foreign cadets and
students. It has gathered unique experience in this field training marine
staff from 11 countries.
4) Educating the mariners is a
continuing process. The graduates keep improving their professional habits
after graduating the Naval
Academy, which is
defined by international and national rules of graduating mariners. The
marine specialists participate at courses, simulator trainings,
qualification courses, etc.
At Naval Academy post graduate qualification
of Navy and Merchant fleet officer’s staff is accomplished which leads as a
result to high management level required by IMO and NATO standards. We
train management specialists for both Navigation Maritime Bulgare and the Navy Headquarters, something recently a
priority of the foreign maritime academies only! This reveals new avenues
of development!
5) A number of countries such
as Germany, Japan, Israel,
Kuwait, and USA as well as companies for training and
export of maritime staff, have been demonstrating
interest to the training at the Naval
Academy. Naval Academy is prepared to accept and
train them well! The certificates granted by IMO, ImarE,
ISO and Lloyd Registers guarantee the prestige of the national leader in
maritime education.
REFERENCES:
1. Crowd Management, Passenger
Safety and Training for Personnel Providing Direct Services to Passenger in
Passenger Spaces. Model Course 1.28. Copyright IMO. London, 2000.
2. Human Relationships. Model
Course 1.21. Copyright IMO. London,
1991.
3. Human Resources Management.
Model Course 5.04. Copyright IMO. London,
1992.
4. Peev,
I.P. Psychological Aspects of Safety in Sea Shipping. Military Journal. Sofia, 1995, №
6, p. 133-136.
5. Peev,
I.P. Psychological Deprivation in Submarine Crews on a Cruise. Military
Journal. Sofia,
1994, № 4, p. 88-92.
6. Personal Survival. Model
Course 1.19. Copyright IMO. London,
1988.
7. Resolution A.741 (18).
Adopted on 4 November 1993. Copyright IMO. London, 1993.
8. Seafers’
Training Certification and Watchkeeping Code
78/95 (STCW’95 Code). Copyright IMO. London,
1995.
9. Ship Simulator and Bridge
Teamwork. Model Course 1.22. Printed in Norway. Copyright IMO. London, 1991.
10. The International
Management Code for the Safety Operation of Ships and for Pollution
Prevention. [International Safety Management (ISM) Code]. Copyright IMO. London, 1993.
Contact
information:
Captain Iliya Petrov Peev,
Naval Reserve Officer
Naval Academy Nikola Vaptsarov
Assistant Professor Doctor of Psychological Science
73 Vasil Drumev
str
Varna
9026
BULGARIA
Tel: ++359 52 632 015; ++359 52 633-017; ++359 552 222;
extension number 239
E-mail: ippeev@abv.bg
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