Kherson State Maritime Academy
The foundation and further history of the Academy is closely connected with the history of the city of Kherson, a shipbuilding center on the South of Ukraine.
Founded in 1778 and located at the advantageous geographical and military position Kherson became a cradle of shipbuilding industry on the Black sea. The rapid development of shipbuilding emerged the demand for marine specialists – navigators and skippers.
To respond to Count Vorontsov’s request on February 20th, 1834 the School of Merchant Shipping was established by the emperor Nikolay I order. The order read: “This educational institution should train, firstly, future navigators and skippers for merchant fleet, and secondly, shipbuilders of commercial vessels».
The school was located in the former Admiralty buildings. Originally 24 students aged 14-17 from local merchants’ and burghers’ families were studied there. The training course lasted for 4 years.
Mixed form of payment became a peculiarity of that educational institution. In addition to budget students there were 10-14 ones who paid for their study and several free listeners from among apprentice-sailors.
To enter the school applicants had to be able to read, write, know Arithmetic rules; be strong without any physical deficiency and “follow God laws and strict morals”.
The curriculum included general and special subjects and foreign languages: Greek, Turkish, Italian, German and French.
It was a boarding school; the cadets lived in barracks and stayed at school before the course completion. After graduation from the school the best students received a diploma of a navigator, the others – an assistant. The outstanding students were awarded with books, nautical instruments, large and small silver medals.
The first maritime institution in Ukraine had the honour to strengthen and renew the fleet and replace the foreign skippers. By the end of XIX century Kherson school graduators had completely replaced the foreign navigators and skippers on the Black sea.
Over the years new traditions formed, and Kherson School of Merchant Shipping grew in popularity among young people.
In 1859, T.G. Shevchenko wrote to his brother Bartholomew from exile: “You write that you were not at home since you accompanied young men to Kherson. Well done! Did you manage to place them in the School of Merchant Shipping? If you did, pray to God and go to bed, then. They will grow respectable men.”
As history shows, the highest score that T.G. Shevchenko expressed to the quality of students training and education in the “Kherson marine school” has confirmed to present.
On its way school repeatedly reorganized and acquired the status in accordance with the educational policy of the government.
In 1834 – School of Merchant Shipping.
In 1872 – marine classes of 2nd rate headed by the committee of 5-persons elected by the City Council.
In 1875, respectively – Nautical School, which trained navigators only for coastal voyages.
In 1880 it was a three-class educational establishment:
- A class of coastal navigation for masters;
- For skippers of coastal navigation and pilotage;
- For seagoing captains.
In 1903 the educational establishment became a Maritime School of Deep-Sea Shipping with three years of study for cadets at the age of 17 to 24. A uniform for cadets and teachers was introduced the same year.
In 1920 the educational establishment was reorganized into evening Technical School of Water Transport. Facilities were improved.
In 1930 it was Kherson Maritime Technical School that trained field personnel for merchant marine. Women were also admitted to this faculty.
In 1944 a maritime educational establishment resumes its work as a maritime boarding school for preparing navigators, marine and shiprepairing engineers with cadets’ complete social security. Lessons were given in a building of a local school number 20.
In 1996 Seafaring School was reorganized into Kherson Marine College with accreditation level II.
A higher educational establishment “Kherson State Maritime Institute” was formed on the basis of a current marine college and private maritime institute on the announcement of the Decree of the Cabinet council of Ukraine (number 414-р, 13.06.2007) and the Order of the Ministry of education and science of Ukraine (number 500, 16.06.2007).
On the 15th of June 2011 the government issued a Decree «On establishing Kherson State Maritime Academy».
The government decision aims at optimizing the network of maritime training institutions in Kherson region, improving the quality of marine specialists training in compliance with international requirements and reinforcing competitiveness of higher educational maritime establishments of Ukraine at the international labour market.
Status change of the higher educational establishment will increase its authority in Ukraine and abroad, attract extra budgetary investments for its development, improve educational facilities and provide an opportunity to increase the quality of maritime training.
The first maritime educational establishment in Ukraine has prepared more than 45 thousand graduates during 184 years of its existence. More than three thousand deep-sea masters, more than two thousand chief engineers, about a thousand electrical engineers and the same number of radio officers on modern vessels are among them.
The list of graduates includes 10 Heroes of the Soviet Union and Socialist Labour, 9 admirals, 2 generals, 3 writers, 3 laureates of USSR state prize, 12 scientists, 3 presidents of steamship companies, 4 harbor masters, 2 directors of shipyards, 2 heads of maritime schools, 2 Ministry of Marine deputy ministers, as well as Honoured Teachers of Ukrainian SSR, authors of coursebooks for USSR maritime schools.
32 ships were named after graduates of Kherson maritime establishment. This is the highest criterion of our maritime educational establishment authority.
Newly developed academy is a successor of Kherson School of Merchant Shipping, established in 1834, and fully legitimate heir of its honourable status of the first maritime educational establishment in Ukraine.
Since its creation Kherson maritime school has never ceased to function as an educational establishment with the only exception of those times when Kherson was invaded during the Great Patriotic War.
Nowadays Kherson State Maritime Academy is a state higher educational establishment with the fourth level of accreditation. It trains maritime professionals with academic degrees ranging from skilled operative, junior specialist, bachelor, specialist and master in “Maritime Navigation”, “Maintenance of ship power plants” and “Maintenance of ship electrical equipment”.
There are Navigation Faculty and Engineering Faculty at the Academy. Maritime College and Professional Maritime Lyceum are the unincorporated structural units of the Academy. Academy with its structural units is a unique educational establishment that uses a unified approach to educational process organization. The teaching staff consists of highly qualified specialists in the marine domain and teachers of the top-qualification. There are twelve departments with 146 teachers, that include 10 doctors of sciences, professors and 65 candidates of sciences, associate professors. There are 124 teachers at the Maritime College and Professional Maritime Lyceum including 49 teachers of top-qualification. Teachers of the departments work on the training development for the disciplines of the curriculum, take part in All-Ukrainian, Regional and Interuniversity research and scientific conferences, so that their scientific works are published in specialized journals and scientific collected volumes of HAC. The research work plays a great role in the life of the Academy notwithstanding the young age of the Academy in the capacity of the higher educational establishment.
The main areas of research and investigation are:
- usage of the information processing technologies in navigation and while modeling complex systems for water transport;
- development of the virtual computer-based shipping simulators;
- mathematical models for the water transport units;
- development and investigation of the modern marine energy-saving power complexes using waste-heat recovery system;
- investigation in the field of protection of marine environment in the process of vessel operation;
- development of the technology for the solid waste disposal, vapour of the carbohydrates on tankers, disinfection of the waste waters on the vessels.
Academy owns a scientific journal “Scientific Bulletin”, registered in HAC.
One of the most significant tasks of the Academy is training of the competitive marine specialists for the national and global job markets. Cadets of the Academy and College have practice on the vessels that belong to the famous shipping companies of Germany, Greece, Holland, Great Britain, USA etc. Moreover, Academy invites best teachers and lecturers of the highest qualification from the European countries.
In 2007 Marine College entered into an agreement with Marlow Navigation about the cooperation in marine specialists training at the premises of Kherson Maritime College. This Agreement includes training, certification, further employment of the cadets and their career development in the Company.
Marlow Navigation together with the training establishment created a joint training laboratory of Kherson State Maritime Academy and Marlow Navigation on the base of the modern vessel HR Constellation in America in order to coordinate the content and level of the theoretical education and to improve the skills of the cadets aboard the vessel. The Company spent 240 thousand US dollars just to tool up 8 places for the practical training for the cadets.
On the initiative of the company «Marlow Navigation» a new undergraduate course on “Management of marine resources” was introduced to an educational establishment of Ukraine for the first time. The company «Marlow Navigation» pays great attention to the improvement of teaching and laboratory facilities in the academy:
- in 2007 the academy was presented with a modern lifeboat “Brig”;
- in 2007 and 2008 the library received about 200 modern textbooks and manuals on marine specialties, as well as educational materials on electronic media;
- in 2009, a unique Ukrainian training simulator “free-fall lifeboat”, which cost about 500 thousand dollars, was installed at the water station.
On February 17, 2011 an agreement was signed on “Cooperation between the Ministry of Education and Science, Youth and Sports of Ukraine, the company «Marlow Navigation», Kherson Regional State Administration and Higher educational establishment “Kherson State Maritime Institute” in order to improve the quality of maritime education in Ukraine.” According to this agreement, Kherson State Maritime Academy:
- created 4 Wi-Fi classes and a server room;
- opened a modern printing house to produce its own textbooks and created its own publishing house;
- set a heavy lift simulator, simulator for survival on water surface, specialized laboratory for training electrical engineers, the simulator for containers lashing, “Navigation Bridge” simulator and others
A great attention is paid to the introduction of new technologies into the learning process. One of the directions in this sphere is cooperation of Kherson State Maritime Academy and the Kiev National University named after T.G Shevchenko (Institute of High Technology), in order to create a joint laboratory for developing electronic textbooks and teaching aids for students.
At present training facilities of the academy meet international requirements and standards of maritime education and include: 5 buildings, 2 workshops, 2 gyms and 2 assembly halls, a canteen, 3 dormitories, 2 water-training stations (on the river Dnieper and in the village Lazurnoye on the Black sea), one library with 3 rooms and a total capacity of about 200,000 copies.
In January 2011, the maritime educational institution has received certificates and marks of conformity with the international standard ISO 9001:2009 DSTU in the Shipping Register of Ukraine.
In 2012, the Academy opened the department of postgraduate study and declared an enrollment of graduate students (full and part-job) by specialty:
- 05.02.01 – Materials;
- 05.13.07 – Automation of management;
- 05.26.01 – Occupational safety and health.
In 2012, our academy according to the rates of the Ministry of Education and Science, Youth and Sports of Ukraine won the first place among other maritime higher educational institutions in Ukraine.