MAAP president Vice Admiral Eduardo Ma R Santos, AFP (ret) and Prof Angelica Baylon receive the membership plaque from IAMU chair Prof Neil Bose and IAMU director Prof Takeshi Nakazawa
The conferment to the academy is an international recognition of its dedication to the enhancement of global excellence in maritime education
The International Association of Maritime Universities (IAMU) has formally conferred full membership status to the Maritime Academy of Asia and the Pacific (MAAP) at a recent IAMU general membership meeting in Haiphong City, Vietnam.
MAAP president VAdm Eduardo Ma R Santos, AFP (ret) took an elegantly crafted plaque from IAMU chair Dr Neil Bose for the recognition. Also present during the plaque handover ceremonies last 26 October 2016 included IAMU honourary chair and Nippon Foundation chair Yosei Yasakawa (represented by IAMU executive director Takeshi Nakazawa) and MAAP external relations director Dr Angelica M Baylon.
The full membership conferment to MAAP is an international recognition of its dedication, along with other universities and academies, to the enhancement of global excellence in maritime education. The recognition follows a site visit to the Academy and communications with IAMU representative Dr Nguyen Thanh of Vietnam Maritime University (VMU). VMU hosted IAMU’s general membership meeting.
Dr Bose stressed the importance of external links. He said: “Given the vastness of the oceans and the global nature of both the shipping industry and the regulatory agencies, it is critical that in the future we strengthen our connections to the industry associations and to the IMO. These linkages will ensure that IAMU and its members remain responsive to the changes being implemented and overcome the challenges of producing graduates that are fully prepared to lead our sector in the future.”
Founded in November 1999, IAMU was organised by seven representative universities from the five continents of the world that have a shred recognition of the significance of maritime education and training in the world shipping industry. Today, IAMU’s membership has extensively grown to 61 maritime universities/academies from 33 different countries, with the special membership of the World Maritime University and Nippon Foundation.
At the same time, two MAAP students have been cited for their outstanding performance in paper presentations at the IAMU Student Conference last October. MAAP deck cadet 2/Cl Andre Chad C Acosta,19, won the best presenter, along with two others, one each from Poland and Germany, beating other 29 graduate-student presenters from IAMU member-institutions. Also, MAAP cadet 3/Cl Junel Kristian Semana, 17, surprised world maritime educators with his piece “Status, Problems and Prospects of Integrated Simulator of MAAP.” Session chairmen for the student presentations were Dr Prof Graham Benton of California State University, USA and Dr Prof Amir Moneer of KSA.