E-learning provides opportunity for seafarers to update skills during quarantine

E-learning provides opportunity for seafarers to update skills during quarantine
Marcus Hand | Sep 16, 2020 https://www.seatrade-maritime.com/ship-operations/e-learning-provides-op...

With seafarers and offshore workers facing Covid-19 quarantine periods before starting new contracts these provide an opportunity to update skills via e-learning.

Siren Berge, chief technology officer of Mintra, said that quarantine provides a “literally captive” audience for online training and learning. Many seafarers for example face 14-day quarantine periods in hotel rooms before flying out to sign-on to their new vessels.

“Quarantine is an opportunity for your workforce to stay up to date and compliant with their training certificates and essentially skill up during lockdown,” Berge told the CrewConnect Europe Virtual Event. “All training records can be stored online and shared electronically.”

E-learning can cover areas such as technical training, engineering, compliance courses and business and leadership skills.

Berge noted that e-learning today represented just 4% of the education market a statistic she highlighted as surprising given there are over 7bn internet connected devices in the world today.

“In a post-pandemic world this percentage is certain to increase. E-learning will never replace the hands-on experience or practical training, but it can compliment, focus and enhance practical training,” she said. E-learning can also be used to Identify any skills gaps in advance of practical training.