| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺灣海洋大學 === 商船學系 === 106 === Surrounded by the sea, Taiwan has indispensably relied on the shipping industry since the beginning of its human economic activities. In recent years, with rapid social changes, improved living standards, low birth rate, and other factors, the well-paid seafarer work has lost its incentive to the graduates of navigational and marine engineering programs in Taiwan, which have brought a low willingness toward working as seafarers. According to the data collected by Taiwan’s Maritime and Port Bureau, until the end of December 2017, there are only 6,270 Taiwanese seafarers working in Taiwan or around the world. Among those, there are only 2,987 ratings, accounting for 47.59% of the total seafaring population, and the average age of these grassroots seafarers is dismayingly old. As for shipping companies, the crisis of talent gaps has emerged, and the working experience on the sea cannot be passed down, which results in some technical gaps. Consequently, it has become an urgent issue for the school maritime programs to cultivate more devoted navigational and marine engineering talents, and enhance their willingness to work on board.
After the amendment of the Seafarer Law on April 17, 2013, the seafaring vocational high school graduates who have 3 years of experience as ratings can take the officer qualification examination. This amendment provides the students with the motivation to work on the sea. Even so, the employment surveys conducted by National Keelung Maritime Vocational High School and National Penghu Marine and Fishery Vocational High School indicated that the number of those seafaring graduates who entered the seafaring market directly has not significantly increased. To explore the reasons, a hypothesis model was constructed, using “Social Cognitive Career Theory” as a research framework, to investigate seafaring intentions of these students, in which navigational and marine engineering majors were analyzed respectively. The analysis of the study was carried out by employing the path analysis of structural equation modeling (SEM), followed up by the multiple-group analysis to compare the difference among seafaring intention factors.
The results revealed that for the navigational majors, “Social contexts” had a significant direct influence on “Seafaring intentions;” while “Vocation interests” had a significant direct influence on “Seafaring intentions” for the marine engineering majors. Based on the findings, the author suggests that the revision over regulations by the government and legislation department should be more pragmatic and focus on the aging problem. Besides, the government, as well as educators and shipping companies, should advocate the positive image of the seafaring profession more actively so as to gain and raise the support from these students’ families, teachers, and friends while they are considering working as seafarers. Meanwhile, seafaring vocational high schools should recruit more full-time teachers with seafaring qualifications and experience, and arrange forums where the on-the-spot ratings are invited over as speakers to introduce the overview and uniqueness of this profession and to share their experience regarding seafaring. With all these changes, hopefully students can be encouraged to weave their dreams of sailing and engage in the seafaring profession.
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