International Journal of Business and General Management

9-18

Authors: Salah Eldin Farag Aly & Ahmad Mohamed Elnoury

The seafarers are the main domain of the main supply chain cycle of the sea borne tradesinceit achieved nearly 80% of global trade by volume, which in 2017 reached about 10.7 billion tons of cargo (UNCTAD, 2018). There is a rapidly growing demand for revalidations of certificates of Competencies and Proficiencies; however, seafarers cannot simultaneously work onboard and attend onshore training courses. Therefore, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) set up digital training in the International Convention on Standard of Training, Certification and Watch keeping for Seafarers (STCW) Code Part A, 2010 to speed up the waiting time for training courses and to satisfy these training demands and provide the recommended guidance provisions regarding the use of distance learning and E-learning, in addition to support marine companies to delegate its seaborne trading in accurate schedule (Chang 2019). Owing to these conditions the academic institutes and flag states authorities support the revalidations of the certificates by E-learning methods to serve this cycle to achieve its goals. This kind of webbased revalidation also is compatible with the new autonomous technology since sooner or later all marine cycles processes will be automated. The E-learning for competencies revalidations is a more intelligent way to facilitate the seafarers’ issues, and which copes with the technological advancement in the future, since the operators and authorities encourage the implementation of the automated system in education and in ships. This paper analyzes the numbers of seafarers holding certificates of competency and proficiency in Egypt as a pilot study, and the data collected in qualitative analysis based on descriptive analysis methodology.