The Commission on Higher Education, or CHEd, said it would start the pilot test for the uniformed assessment exam for maritime students nationwide by next year.

"We now have a maritime assessment test for incoming first-year students. The schools will see the test results and how they could use it for admissions," CHEd Chairperson Prospero de Vera III told the DAILY TRIBUNE.

De Vera said this was required by the European Maritime Safety Agency or EMSA, adding that the country's maritime schools had their own admission exams.

He said the Center for Educational Management will do the assessment test for maritime education to measure the competencies of the students who want to pursue a maritime course.

The Center for Educational Management also conducted the National Medical Admission Test.

"This will help the schools select the students who are better prepared to go into maritime education," De Vera said in a recent interview. "Maybe we will pilot test it by the middle of next year, and maybe that will be implemented in the school year 2024-2025."

There are currently 83 maritime schools nationwide.

"I think that's good because the other way to do it is to evaluate the admission of the 83 maritime schools; that's heavier. Just give them tools to help them accept students," De Vera said.

CHEd, he said, has implemented the new curriculum for maritime education starting this academic year.

"We enhanced the curriculum for maritime education. We are now laying out the catch-up plan because we added more skills-based subjects," he said.

"To the new first-year students, they will all use the new curriculum. But the upper-level students will have to catch up because they're still using the old curriculum," De Vera added.

CHeD, he said, is creating a better monitoring system to measure the outcomes of the country's maritime education on a year-to-year basis.

"We are creating such a monitoring tool," he said, adding that the European Union has pledged to give some funds for this.

De Vera also said that CHEd continues to evaluate and re-evaluate all the country's maritime schools to ensure they comply with international standards.

"If there are not compliant programs, we will close them," De Vera said. "The technical panel will report to the commission en banc on their findings soon."

He disclosed that 15 maritime programs were shut down last year for being non-compliant with the standards.

"I think there are still non-compliant maritime programs," De Vera said.

The CHEd has also declared a moratorium on opening new maritime programs for the next five years.

De Vera said the European Union has recognized the certificates of Filipino seafarers issued by the Philippines.

"Finally, after 17 years, we can breathe a little because the EU sent us notice early this year that the certificates issued by the Philippines will be recognized for the next 10 years," he said. "What we need to do is to implement what we promised in the compliance report."