Africa has no shortage of young people eager to go to sea. Maritime academies from Nigeria to Ghana, Kenya to South Africa turn out graduates year after year. Yet across the continent, thousands of these cadets remain stuck ashore—certificates incomplete, careers stalled—because they cannot secure the mandatory sea-time required under the STCW Convention. Classroom training is only half the journey. Without practical onboard experience, a Certificate of Competency is little more than an expensive piece of paper.
The African Maritime Council’s recent intervention crystallises a long-standing structural failure: “Africa has no shortage of young people willing to build careers in the maritime industry. But getting trained is only half the journey… Across the continent, many cadets are unable to complete their sea-time requirements because there simply aren’t enough training berths available. In Nigeria, over 100 government-sponsored cadets have been waiting for years to complete their certification requirements.”
This is not a marginal problem. It is the central bottleneck preventing Africa from building a competitive maritime workforce at the precise moment the global industry faces a projected shortfall of tens of thousands of officers.
The Scale of the Bottleneck
In Nigeria alone, industry leaders have repeatedly flagged numbers that should alarm policymakers. The African Shipowners Association has warned that more than 5,000 trained Nigerian cadets lack sea-time, leaving their certificates effectively worthless. Graduates of the Maritime Academy of Nigeria (MAN), Oron, have described years of waiting, expiring medical certificates, and the quiet abandonment of maritime ambitions. Some classes report that fewer than one in ten secure placements within three years of graduation.
The Nigerian Seafarers Development Programme (NSDP) has produced its own cohort of stranded cadets. More than 100 beneficiaries—many trained in the Philippines between 2012 and 2014—completed substantial academic and sea-time requirements yet still await final deployment and Certificate of Competency examinations years later. Youth groups have publicly pressed NIMASA for a clear timetable and release of outstanding funds.
This is not uniquely Nigerian. Surveys of cadets across Ghana, Liberia, Cameroon, South Africa, Togo, and Kenya reveal similar patterns: prolonged searches for placements lasting ten to twelve months or more, weak institutional support for placements, and particular barriers for female cadets. Africa supplies only around four percent of the world’s 1.9 million seafarers despite its extensive coastline and demographic dividend. Limited domestic fleets force reliance on foreign vessels that have little incentive to prioritise African trainees. Only 24 African countries sit on the IMO White List, and far fewer enjoy full European recognition, further constraining employability.
Progress Exists—But It Is Fragile and Insufficient
There are encouraging exceptions. NLNG Shipping and Marine Services Limited (NSML) has emerged as a practical model. Through structured programmes and its Maritime Centre of Excellence, NSML reports that 272 cadets have completed sea-time training, with dozens more progressing toward certification. A December 2025 memorandum of agreement with MAN Oron placed 43 academy cadets on NSML vessels within months. Additional Nigerian shipowners have offered more than 60 slots. These are real, measurable breakthroughs after years of near-total blockage.
The African Shipowners Association has also announced plans for a continental cadetship scheme linking African cadets to members’ vessels under public-private arrangements. Some academies are pursuing training-vessel acquisition and regional partnerships. These initiatives prove that progress is possible when industry takes ownership.
Yet they remain exceptions. A handful of progressive operators cannot absorb the annual output of Africa’s maritime education and training institutions. Without scale, the pipeline stays clogged.
Why Sea-Time Matters More Than Training Ships Alone
Sea-time is not a bureaucratic formality. It is the difference between theoretical knowledge and operational competence: real watchkeeping, cargo operations, emergency procedures, multinational crews, and the daily realities of life at sea. Graduates restricted to inland or near-coastal experience cannot sit for unlimited Certificates of Competency. Without those, they cannot compete for the better-paid international berths that generate remittances and build national expertise.
The absence of a critical mass of indigenous seafarers also undermines broader maritime ambitions. Cabotage laws, the Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund, and aspirations for national fleets ring hollow if the vessels, when eventually acquired, must be crewed largely by foreigners. As one industry leader put it, knowledge is fading as experienced professionals age out without adequate succession.
What Must Change
The solutions are known. They require coordination, not invention.
First, mandatory cadet berth quotas should be written into regional offshore charter contracts, cabotage frameworks, and port concession agreements. Local content rules that stop at employment percentages without securing training seats are incomplete. As one commentator on the African Maritime Council post noted, this is ultimately a structural charter-party obligation.
Second, governments and regulators must create incentives that make training berths commercially rational for shipowners: tax relief, priority access to government cargoes or contracts, training subsidies, and recognition in licensing or flag-state preferences. Relying solely on corporate goodwill is insufficient.
Third, regional cooperation must move beyond statements. Shared training ships, standardised placement networks, and mutual recognition of sea-time across African flags would multiply scarce berths. Partnerships between institutions such as MAN Oron and counterparts in Liberia or Ghana point in the right direction.
Fourth, data and accountability are essential. Transparent tracking of cadet placement rates, completion times, and certification outcomes would allow policymakers to measure progress and hold institutions and operators to account. Targets should be specific: more cadets completing sea-time and obtaining CoCs each year.
Finally, the focus must shift from simply training more people to ensuring those trained can qualify and work. Expanding enrolment without expanding berths only enlarges the pool of frustrated graduates.
The Stakes
The global shipping industry needs officers. Africa has the youth, the coastline, and the strategic location. What it lacks is a reliable bridge from classroom to bridge and engine room. Every year of delay means lost foreign-exchange earnings, continued dependence on expatriate crews, and the quiet erosion of a generation’s ambition.
The African Maritime Council is right: the focus must go beyond training more people. It must also be on creating opportunities for them to qualify and work. Until African governments, shipowners, and regulators treat sea-time berths as critical infrastructure rather than an afterthought, the continent’s blue economy will remain more aspiration than reality—and its young people will keep waiting on the quay.
Andrew Mwangura is a maritime safety analyst and editor of the Maritime Business Review.