About Us.
What is The National Institute for Sea Training？
The National Institute for Sea Training (NIST) was primarily organized in 1943 as a governmental institution under the direction of the Ministry of Communication in order to consolidate maritime education and training by integrating and managing training ships. NIST is a unique educational institution in Japan to train students who are going to be a marine officer/engineer, by means of a fleet of the training ships. Training is called onboard sea training/sea training, and it has been continuously provided to the students since NIST was established and NIST has produced a large number of personnel to the Japanese shipping industries over the years. NIST was transformed into an Independent Administrative Institution from the institutional organization of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport (MLIT) in 2001, in consequence of the administrative reform. Then, scope of business to be performed was stipulated in the Law of NIST newly-enacted, saying that 1) NIST shall provide the sea training to the students of maritime educational institutions and to persons designated by the ministry of MLIT, 2) shall conduct research on the sea training and 3)shall conduct their associated business.
NIST currently operates five training ships, which are two sailing ships Nippon Maru and Kaiwo Maru, one steam turbine ship Taisei Maru, two diesel engine ships Ginga Maru and Seiun Maru.Headquarters of NIST is located in Yokohama city, in which Administration Bureau, Practical Training Bureau, Ship Management Bureau, Safety Promotion Office, Faculty of Navigation Course Department and Faculty of Engineering Course Department are placed. Other than that, NIST has Kobe Branch Office in Kobe city. In the Practical Training Bureau, boarding plan, educational affair, curriculum design/development areundertaken and personnel and ship management are undertaken in the Ship Management Bureau. Promotion Office was set up in 2005 in order to promote safety culture, obtaining an arbitrary certificate of ISM Code.
The students are expected to be a captain or chief engineer of merchant ships in the future such as passenger ship, cargo ship, container ship, oil carrier, ferry boat, etc., who has necessary qualifications represented by maritime technologies and seamanship. Well-designed training curricula/programs are prepared for the students to learn/acquire maritime technologies and the training program would be characterized in cultivating professionalism, aptitude and cooperative sprit that are believed to be indispensable for marine officers. Approximately 1,800 students come on board every year recently and the total number of the students who had completed the sea training program would be 126,939 until 2005. More than that, NIST has accepted dozens of trainees from Southeast Asian countries every year since 1997. They have three-month sea training and this training program is implemented as Official Development Assistance (ODA) by the government of Japan. In October, 2007, another project accepting trainees from abroad was begun, which provides two-month sea training to the students of MaritimeAcademy of Asia and the Pacific in Republic of the Philippines (MAAP). This newest training program is implemented based on the Memorandum of Agreement for the Cooperation for Sea Training between NIST and MAAP, designed in cooperation with MLIT, International Mariners Management Association of Japan, MAAP and NIST.
