WMA 2nd & Chief Engineer Course

2nd Engineer & Chief Engineer CoC – Class 2 & Class 1

Seats get filled up about 3 months in advance for the Class II course. Hence, it is advisable to apply early.

Course Title:

STCW III/2 & III/3 Second / Chief Engineer (Examination Route)

Course Duration:

The course duration for EK General & Motor will be about 10 – 12 weeks and these classes are conducted ONLINE ONLY.

The 6 academic subjects are offered by the distance learning option i.e. the study material will be sent online to the student and the applicant studies on his own. On an average it will take a student 1 months of study time per academic subject to prepare well for the written examinations.

The length of visa that you will get is for 6 months. You will get 2 attemps at the written exams during your 6 months visa.

Exams are held in the months of March, July, October and December. Exams are usually held over 4 days continuously with each day having 2 exams. Normally, students sit for 4 exam papers only at a time as it will be exceedingly difficult to sit for 8 exams over a 4 day period.

If you clear all the 8 written examination in the first two attempts as well as the 1 MCA oral exam (which can be given before or after the written exams), you can expect to receive your Class II CoC in about 6 months duration.

As written exams are held 4 times in a year with a gap of 3 months approximately, every subsequent attempt will increase the time to receive your CoC by an additional 3 months.

Normally, a BE Marine / Mechanical Engineering student can expect to clear his written exams in 2 – 3 attempts which may involve 2 trips to the UK.

A non BE student may take 3 – 5 attempts to clear all the written exams which may involve upto 3 – 5 trips to the UK.

Course Starting Date

6 September 2021 ; 10 January 2022 ; 3 May 2022 ; September 2022 (dates not confirmed yet). There are 3 batches every year.

Subjects

There are 8 subjects at the Class II level i.e. 2 “Professional Subjects” and 6 “Academic Subjects”.

Professional Subjects:

There is only one oral exam conducted by the MCA which the student has to clear. The oral examination can be given at any point of time during your stay in the UK although the best time is to give it is 2 weeks after your EK General + EK Motor written examination. You will need a Notice of Eligibility (NoE) from the MCA before you can sit for your oral examination.

Normally, you can expect to get an oral examination date 2 weeks later from the date of application for the oral exam.

It is not compulsory to clear the written exams before you can sit for the MCA oral exams. Once, you have cleared all the 8 written exams (i.e. 2 Professional Subjects and 6 Academic Subjects) and one oral exam, you can apply for the CoC.

It takes about 3 weeks for the CoC to be issued. If you have returned back to India after your written and oral exams, you can send your written exam results and oral results by courier to the MCA, UK and they will issue the CoC and courier it to you. Written exams are held 4 times in a year i.e. in the months of March, July, October and December. It takes normally about 6 weeks to receive your written examination results from the examination date.

Eligibility Class 2 CoC:

Before undertaking Engineering Knowledge (EK) or MCA Oral examinations, candidates must have completed 12 months seagoing service as an Engineer Officer whilst holding an EOOW III/1 Certificate of Competency on vessels of at least 750 KW in engine power.

BOILERS on ship is not a requirement for giving Class II 2nd Engineers CoC exam in UK.

Class 4 FG from India, MEC3 from New Zealand and Class 5 from Singapore are acceptable. You will need to have completed the 12 months of mandatory sea service after the Class 4 / MEC3 / Class 5 CoC along with C/E testimonials as supporting documents.

There is NO requirement of any TRAINING RECORD BOOK for giving your Class II CoC in the UK.

Eligibility Class 1 CoC:

Candidates must hold a valid Second Engineer III/2 unlimited Certificate of Competency and have obtained either:

If you already hold a Class 2 CoC from India, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, etc., please apply for a Notice of Eligibility (NoE) with the MCA. The MCA will mention in the NoE the subjects for which you need to do the course, the written exams that you need to clear along with the MCA oral exams to be issued with a Class 1 CoC.

The total expenses including tuition fees, oral and written examination fees, MCA UK approved STCW advanced courses (AFF + MFA + PSC&RB), MCA UK approved High Voltage Course, HELM, food, accommodation, flight tickets and visas for 2 trips to the UK will work out to be as given below (assuming 1 ?= 105 INR):

The above cost does not include Tanker Courses which may cost you an additional ? 600 per tanker course and MCA endorsement.

The money that you will need to show for the UK visa will be ?2,000 excluding the course tuition fees.

Private Tuitions:

If you wish to enrol for private tuitions in Mumbai for the X6 Academic Subjects i.e. Heat, Mechanics, Naval Architecture, Electrotechnology, Mathematics and Engg. Drawing or the x2 Professional Subjects EK General and EK Motor, please give us a call at 9892725375. Kindly note that these tuitions inMumbai are offered by teachers in their individual capacity and are not endorsed by Warsash Maritime Academy, Southampton Solent Univeristy UK in anyway. Taking private tuitions is not mandatory, totally optional and depends on the individual students discretion.

We have uploaded many of the past question papers at the bottom of this web page. This will give you an idea of the level of difficulty of the exams and thereafter you can take an informed decision whether to take optional private tuition classes to prepare for these exams.

Course Booking Procedure:

Please scan and email / Whatsapp the following documents to us:

Please note that demand drafts are not being accepted by the college any more.

If you need any assistance in money transfer to the University, please do revert back to us.

It is NOT necessary to have completed your 12 months of sea service after Class 4 CoC to book a seat. As seats are offered on a first come first served basis, please book your seats atleast 3 months in advance of the course starting date.

After you have submitted the supporting documents by email / Whatsapp and remitted the booking deposit to the University,the admission letter will be emailed to you by the University in about 3 weeks time. Please note that the admission letter is different from the visa letter. Admission letter will be sent to you by email as a pdf copy at the time of taking admissions whilst the visa letter will be sent to you by email about 6 weeks prior to the examination date. Visa will be applied about 1 month prior to the examination date. We will assist you with the complete visa application process.

If you are on board the ship, you can send copies of your Passport, CDC and CoC by email or on Whatsapp whilst your family can remit the deposit money to the college by electronic bank transfer or using a debit card on the Univeristy website. Hence, the admission procedure can be completed without the physical presence of the applicant in India also.

The upfront deposit of 1,000 GBP will be adjusted against your tuition fees, the balance of which you have to pay before the ONLINE course commencement.

The deposit payment of 1,000 GBP is not refundable but can be transferred to a future course in the name of the student (not a friend or colleague), 24 months from the first course starting date. For course postponement, the student needs to inform in writing by email about 21 days before the course commencement date. For details on cancellations policies / refunds, please read through the Course and Fee Guidance Notes.

COURSE FEES (valid upto 31st July 2022):

Professional Subjects: Engineering Knowledge (Motor & General together) ? ???? 2,120

Academic Subjects (Distance Learning from City of Glasgow College): 495 GBP per subject x 6 subjects – 2,970 GBP

HELM (M) course can be done in India as it is available at half the cost of doing it in the UK.

Warsash Maritime Academy is presently not offering courses for the 6 academic subjects i.e. Heat, Mechanics, Navalarchitecture, Electrotechnology, Mathematics and Engineering Drawing. The college is only offering courses for the 2 Professional Subjects i.e. EK General and EK Motor. It is expected that in the academic year 2022 the distance learning program for the academic subjects will be offered by Warsash Maritime Academy, Southampton, UK.

Students who hold a 4 year degree (not 3 year Diploma or ATS) in Mechanical or Marine Engineering from India are likely to be eligible for exemptions from certain academic subjects as would be decided by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA), UK. Exemptions are only from “attending the course” and not from the “examination” i.e. each student has to clear all the 8 subjects written examination (2 Professional Subjects and 6 Academic Subjects). The advantage of getting exemptions is that you will NOT have to pay for the tuition fee or attend classes for the Academic Subjects which leads to substantial savings in time and money. From past experience we have seen that students having BE Marine Engineering qualification have been exempted from all the 6 Academic Subjects by the MCA, UK whilst students having BE Mechanical Engineering qualification have bee exempted from 4 Academic Subjects (i.e. exemptions not granted for Naval Architecture and Electro- technology) by the MCA, UK. If you have not been granted exemptions for any subject, it implies that you will have to complete the course study for that subject before being allowed to sit for the written exam of that subject.

If you are not eligible for getting exemptions from the academic subjects and want to join Warsash Maritime Academy, Southampton for the Class 2 course, we will guide you in getting the distance learning study material for the 6 Academic Subjects from City of Glasgow College. The present cost of the distance learning program from City of Glasgow College is 495 GBP per academic subject i.e. 2,850 GBP for all the 6 Academic Subjects. If you are doing the EK General and EK Motor course from Warsash Maritime Academy, the college will allow you to sit for all the 8 written exams although the distance learning program for the 6 academic subjects has been taken from City of Glasgow College. The visa letter will be issued by Warsash Maritime Academy, Southampton Solent University, UK. Once the distance learning program of Warsash Maritime Academy is ready, you can opt to take the program from Warsash Maritime Academy itself.

To apply for exemptions, the seafarer applicant with a BE Mechanical / Marine qualification has to first apply for a Letter of Comparability (LoC) from NARIC. This LoC will state that your degree is equivalent to a British degree. The MCA, UK does not accept degree certificates directly from India. UK NARIC does the job of comparing your qualification from India with a UK qualification and issues a letter stating that your degree is comparable with a UK degree. This LoC will have to be submitted whlist applying for exemptions from the Academic Subjects course of study, detail of which have been explained below.

Applying for a Letter of Comparability (LoC) from NARIC, UK (only for students with BE Mechanical / Marine):

As a graduate mechanical / marine engineer you will need to scan and upload your documents on the NARIC (National Recognition Information Centre for the United Kingdom) website for getting a Letter of Comparability from them. The time duration to receive a Letter of Comparability would be 1 month approximately. The procedure is simple and should not takemore than 30 minutes:

Students who have done a BE Mechanical followed by a 1 year GME course are requested NOT to upload the GME certificate. There is no NARIC equivalence for the GME course and this will delay the process.

UK NARIC will send your LoC by normal post which will take about 1 – 2 weeks time (included in the total time of 30 days mentioned above) after the processing is complete as mentioned on the UK NARIC website. If you reside in a remote location in India, it is advisable that you give the returning address of someone in Mumbai / Delhi preferably. From past experiences we
have seen that many students residing in remote areas or tier B cities in India did not receive the post sent by UK NARIC as it is delivered in India by the India post office whose services are not very reliable.

A sample NARIC LoC is enclosed here. Click NARIC Page 1 and NARIC Page 2.

The NARIC LoC will be of two pages as shown in the links above.

After obtaining your NARIC LoC, you can apply for exemptions.

Please visit the link below to apply for Academic Subjects Course Exemption:

Applying for a Notice of Eligibility (NoE) to the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA), UK:

Students need to apply for a NoE with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA), UK to be eligible to sit for the written and oral examinations in the UK. You can apply for your NoE from India prior to going to the UK or you can apply for your NoE during your stay in the UK. It is not necessary to be in possession of NoE for booking the Class II 2nd Engineer Course at Warsash Maritime Academy, Southampton, UK. However, if you have doubts that some of your sea-time may not be counted by the MCA for whatsoever reasons (for e.g. missing documents, no stamps on the CDC, C/E did not give sea service testimonials, etc.), it would be advisable to do your NoE before booking your course. The processing time for the NoE is normally 28 working days + postage time.

The following is the procedure to apply for a NoE:

Download the NoE form MSF 4275
Take a printout of the NoE form and fill up the NoE form in CAPITAL LETTERS with BLACK PEN.

The following documents are to be sent to the MCA office in ORIGINALS only:

Send the documents by a good courier for e.g. DHL and check on the DHL website when the documents have been received by the MCA. The address of the MCA is given in the last page of the NoE form.

If you have not got any information from the MCA after 30 days, please send an email to the MCA at engineering@mcga.gov.uk mentioning your Name and Date of Birth. Ask them, what is the status of your NoE. The NoE processing time is normally 28 days + postage time.

From 2017 onwards, all written exams for the 8 subjects will be completed during the Class 2 CoC itself . What it implies is that when you come to the UK later for your Class 1 CoC, you will only need to appear for the MCA oral exams. There will no longer be written exams at the Class 1 level.

STUDENT VISA – Short Term (non points based system) will be issued for a period of 6 months. Your ONLINE course duration for EK General + Motor is of 10 – 12 ?weeks duration. The remaining academic subjects study material (if not exempted) is accessed through a Username and Password by downloading from the college website. Within the 6 months visa period, you will get 2 attempts to sit for the written exams. Your approximate stay in the UK will be for 2 weeks to sit for the written exam and the MCA oral. After appearing for the exams you will return back to India. You can then go back to the UK for appear for resit or the remaining subject exams as written exams are held 4 times in a year i.e. in March, July, October and December. Alternatively, you may join ship and go decide to go back later to the UK to sit for the exams.

If you wish to buy books for the academic subjects, you may contact the following two book stores in Mumbai:

Sterling Book House
181, Dr. D.N. Road, Fort, Near C.S.T. Railway Station, Mumbai – 400 001
Tel: (022) 2261 2521 / 2267 / 6046
Email: admin@sterlingbookhouse.com

Cheapest Xerox
Opp. GPO, Next to Neelam Restaurant, 65 Walchand Hirachand Marg, Fort, Mumbai – 400 001
Tel: (022) 2261 1597 / 4967

Buy the Reeds Series for the academic subjects like Heat, Mechanics, Electrotechnology and Naval Architecture. Students who have got exemptions from the Academic Subjects will not be paying tuition fees to the college. Hence, they will not be receiving any study material for those subjects and need to arrange their own study material. This is where Reeds series will be useful as a reference / study book for the Academic Subjects.

For students, who do NOT have a BE degree and hence NO EXEMPTIONS from the academic subjects, they can do the EK Motor & General online course offered by Warsash Maritime Academy, Southampton. For the 6 academic subjects, they may take distance learning modules from City of Glasgow College of Nautical Studies but may sit for all the 8 written exams and MCA orals in Southampton if they wish to. The expected cost per academic module is about 495 GBP from City of Glasgow College. We will guide you with the procedure of taking the distance learning module from City of Glasgow College, UK. Warsash Maritime Academy, Southampton is expected to come with their distance learning program very soon for the 6 academic subjects.

Past Question Papers:

HEAT

MECHANICS

NAVAL ARCHITECTURE

ELECTROTECHNOLOGY

ENGINEERING DRAWING

COST OF LIVING IN SOUTHAMPTON:

The approximate living cost is as given below but it will vary from person to person:

How to reach Southampton:

There are direct / indirect flights from Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Calcutta, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Cohin to London. On arrival at the London Heathrow airport, you will have to go through immigration check up which may take about 1 ? 2 hours depending upon the rush at the airport. Joining the London Heathrow Airport is the National Express Coach station / bus stop. You can buy the bus ticket at the bus stop and the fare is approximately ?25 for a one way trip. The journey duration from London Heathrow airport to Southampton is about 75 ? 90 minutes and there is a bus leaving every 45 minutes on an average. You will find many tourists / students staying overnight at the London airport and taking the morning coach to their respective destination. You will not be charged for staying during the night at the airport but you will have to make do with a chair only or maybe sit on the floor with your luggage. On reaching Southampton bus stop, you will take a taxi to your landlord?s house or to a hotel. As the bus stop is located in the heart of the city of Southampton, your taxi fare will not be more than ?5.

Accommodation, Food & Flight Tickets:

Accommodation: College does not guarantee hostel accommodation for overseas students. Students stay in rented apartments as it works out to be much cheaper. A typical house would have 4 – 5 rooms which would be rented out to the students. Each room would be fully furnished i.e. the room would have a bad, mattress, wardrobe, study table, carpet, lights and heating system. The student would pay the room rent to the landlord every month. The kitchen and the washroom would be shared amenities. The kitchen would typically have a dining table, microwave, refrigerator and cooking system in place. On arrival in the city of Southampton, you can directly move into the rented accommodation or alternatively stay in a Bed & Breakfast (budget hotel) for one night, check out a few houses the next day and accordingly move into one of the many available rented accommodations. A single room would house one student, a couple or 2 students at the maximum. On signing the contract with the landlord, you will have to pay one month?s of rent as security deposit as well as the rent in advance for that month. Please ensure that you keep a copy of your contract safely with you and insist that the rent will be paid by cheques only. Ask the landlord for a copy of rent receipt as well for your safety. Most contract?s come with a one month notice period which means that you will have to give one month?s notice before vacating or else you may lose your deposit money. At the time of returning the deposit money, the landlord may make deductions for any damage that the tenant may have done to the property.

A list of landlords are given below whom you can start contacting 1 – 2 weeks prior to your departure for the UK:

Most of the landlords are Gujaratis or Punjabis. The accommodations are located about 5 – 10 minutes walking distance from Southampton Solent University.

Alternatively, you can stay for 1 day in a Bed and Breakfast Hotel (budget hotel) on arrival in Southampton and check out houses the next day. Visit the link below for a list of such budget hotels in the vicinity of the University:
Bed and Breakfast Budge Hotels

Note: As the course is now being offered totally online, hence your stay in the UK will now be for 2 weeks only. Landlords may be reluctant to rent their houses for such a short duration. In such a case, students will have to put up in budget hotels for your 2 weeks of stay in the UK.

Food: All food items that are available in India are also available in Southampton, UK for e.g. rice, wheat, dal, vegetables, chicken, mutton, fish, fruits, etc. Students staying in a house buy their groceries together and divide the cost amongst themselves. Eating outside at restaurants, take-away, etc. are very expensive because of the high cost of labour in UK and hence invariably all students cook their food together at home only. Grocery shops are located at 5 – 10 minutes walking distance from the accommodation areas.

You can also order Tiffin Service (Indian food) by contacting Ms. Anu Mehak (Whatsapp: +44 7402 489098

Flight tickets: You do not need to have your flight tickets whilst applying for a UK visitor visa. Students usually book their flight tickets after having received their UK student visa. As your visa is for a 6 months period, it is strongly advised that you buy a return ticket (to&fro). We will introduce you to a Travel Agent who will help you out with flight ticket bookings or you can book through online portals like Yatra.com, Cleartrip.com, etc. A one way fare price will range from 20,000 – 30,000 INR whilst a return fare will range from 40,000 – 70,000 INR. Prices vary depending upon season and how far is your travel date from the date of booking. You arrival airport in the UK will be London Heathrow.

You will be introduced to the other students going along with you so that you can decide whom do you want to share your accommodation with in? Southampton and accordingly book your flight tickets together. There are about 200 students going to Warsash Maritime Academy, Southampton, UK from India every year for the various Deck and Engine post-sea CoC courses over the 3 batches starting in January, April and September respectively.

Visa Rules:

The visa rules keep on changing very frequently. Hence, the rules in the past may not be acceptable in the future. We will guide you with the visa application process.

Contact Us:

Kunal Anshuman,
Springdale India
Tel: +91 – 98927 25375
Email: kunal.anshuman@springdaleindia.com
Visit: www.springdaleindia.com
Address: 529, Mastermind 4, Royal Palms, Aarey Colony, Goregaon E, Mumbai ? 400 065