As COVID-19 restrictions have eased up in the country, the Singapore (Nantong) International Maritime Institute (SNIMI), from 20 July to 14 August 2020, opened its doors and welcomed two new batches of ratings for the 71st and 72nd Seacare Quality Rating Training (SQRT).
What’s different in these SQRTs is that there are three female ratings who attended—one in SQRT71 and the others in SQRT72. One 22-year-old Deng Xin Xin, from SQRT71, highlighted, “After completing this course, I look forward to working onboard vessels to show that women can perform at their work just as good, if not better than their male colleagues.”
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Life during the COVID-19 pandemic has been challenging with many educational institutes having to shut down physical classes. Responding swiftly to the disruptions, Singapore (Nantong) International Maritime Institute (SNIMI) was one of the educational players that moved to online platforms to conduct its lessons.
Since the coronavirus measures have eased in the country, institutes have reopened. The ‘return to school’ is a much welcome step for many at a time when they are itching to get out of their house after facing the four walls of their rooms during the lockdown.
From 20 July to 14 August 2020, SNIMI opened its doors to some 33 ratings for the SQRT71 and SQRT 72 course. The four-week training programme, which was conducted in Shanghai had a unique participation of three female ratings – a rare find in a predominantly male profession.
A female rating was among the 16 ratings in SQRT 71, while the SQRT 72 saw the participation of another two female ratings out of the cohort of 17 ratings. Ms Deng Xin Xin, aged 22 years old, hails from Sichuan. Fascinated since childhood with the idea of working at sea, she joined SQRT 71 and happened to be the only female participant. In her first initial assessment during the first week of the course, her trainer assessed her level of English proficiency and found that she only attained a score of 37 per cent. Undaunted, Ms Deng worked hard at improving her English proficiency. At her final assessment, she attained an overall score of 63 per cent. “After completing this course, I look forward to working onboard vessels to show that women can perform at their work just as good, if not better than their male colleagues.”
In general, the mood in classes were positive as students were able to find some normalcy in life by being able to resume classes physically. The trainers were also glad to share more knowledge with the students after having done new research work to improve on the subjects being taught.
The SNIMI trainers are heartened to find that they have made a difference by improving the lives of these sea ratings by imparting them new skills such as leadership and motivation. More importantly, these ratings now have a renewed confidence to utilise English to communicate during the course of their stint onboard.
With the global COVID-19 situation uncertain and things subject to change in an instant, SNIMI stands ready to commit to the training of the ratings, and can adapt to different teaching platforms whenever required.
SQRT 71
SQRT 72
