​The Maritime Cadet Scholarship (MCS) Program managed by the Ok Tedi Development Foundation’s Education Team, has formally secured a partnership with a renowned shipping company.

This Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) is with P&O Maritime Services (PNG) Limited, a premier maritime solutions provider to governments, businesses and organisations across all the seven continents of the world.

Through this MoU, maritime Cadets who are recipient of the OTDF Maritime Scholarship are eligible to complete their 24 month sea-time experience on-board P&O vessels.

This alleviates burden of students and their parents to look for ships or vessels where the student can complete their practical experience in order to graduate.

This training also opens up opportunities for employment with P&O if they perform well.

This year, four successful candidates, 2 deck and 2 engineering cadets will start their on-board training under the MoU. General Manager P&O Maritime Services (PNG) Limited Mr John Whitfield, during the brief signing ceremony in Kiunga said this partnership is an investment in young people from Western Province to make strong and positive contributions to their families, their community, to the province and the country. He added that he was very impressed with the cadetship program and that P&O would be interested in doubling the number of cadets across the P&O fleet.

The document was officially signed by both the P&O Maritime (PNG) Ltd General Manager John Whitfield and Ian Middleton Chief Executive Officer for OTDF. This document sets out the respective roles and responsibilities of OTDF and P&O for the implementation of the Training from August 2019, until such a time when either party requests a review.