Orals results for all MCA Offices for OOW(D), Mates, Masters, OOW(E), 2nd E, Chiefs from 2014 to 2018

[Hatchorder]

Hello everyone,

Hopefully you are here because you would like to know what the pass mark is for the different MCA Offices around the UK. Because of the lack of accurate information I submitted a Freedom of Information request to the MCA which was worded:

Dear Maritime and Coastguard Agency,

I would like specific detailed information on the pass/fail statistics for the orals exams for each of the examining Offices in the UK for the years 2018, 2017, 2016 and 2015 broken down by Office and the following exam type:

Master Unlimited Unlimited
Mate Unlimited Unlimited
Officer of Watch Deck Unlimited Unlimited
Chief Engineer Unlimited Unlimited
Second Engineer Unlimited Unlimited
Officer of Watch Engineer Unlimited Unlimited

I do not need the statistics for any other orals examination type. If the current year to date statistics are not available then I would like to request the same information for 2014.

If the statistics are further broken down by examiner they I would like that information included as well please.

Yours faithfully,

The request was only partially successful, because they deemed the amount of work necessary to identify the results for each examiner as being too costly - see below:

In order to provide you with the information on the scale that you have requested, it would require in excess of 1,200 paper records to be recalled from our remote store facility, and for these records to be analysed by hand to collate and assess the information. This would then need to be transposed into a format appropriate for statistical analysis and reporting.

Section 12 of the Act makes provision for public authorities to refuse requests for information where the cost of dealing with them would exceed the appropriate limit, which for central government is set at ?600. This represents the estimated cost of one person spending 3.5 working days in determining whether the department holds the information, locating, retrieving and extracting the information.

We estimate that it will take us in excess of 3.5 working days to determine appropriate material and locate, retrieve and extract the information in reference to your request. Therefore, your request will not be processed further.

However, they did provide me with the statistical evidence by office for the last 4 years. I will take up the issue of the additional costs for the other information I requested, as I do not believe that they do not keep that statistical information collated for analysis of examiners??

So, The first thing I did was tabulate all of the separate spreadsheets into one set of sheets. I placed them in order of the total number of exams performed by each office. Tyneside did 3960 exams in 4 years, Glasgow did 2553, Liverpool 1974, Southampton 1639, Belfast 588, Hull 436, Cardiff 369 and the rest below that. Points to note are Leith and Harwich have done no exams for the last 2 years and Plymouth for a year.

At the bottom of this post will be a downloadable PDF File of the results. Should anyone need to see the original spreadsheets I can send them to them if they submit a private message to me - but the only difference is that they are broken down month by month and are 4 separate spreadsheets with up to 10 tabs each and some years the engineering results are broken down into Motor and Steam, which I have combined.

I hope that you find the information useful in understanding the variations in results by each MCA office, and even in selecting a suitable college in which to study for whatever ticket you have to take.

Regards,

Ian.

So here you go:

Results1.jpg

Results2.jpg

Results3.jpg

Results4.jpg

Results5.jpg

Results6.jpg

Results7.jpg

MCA Results 2014 to 2018.pdf

[Chiefy]

I find it hard to believe they don't have all this on hand anyway, for their own internal QA and monitoring

[flobbernoggin]

I would have expected to see an increase over the years of examinations, we may only have a few years of data but it looks like overall exams are being taken at either a steady rate or a small decline.

I got the impression with SMART funding that cadets were being crammed through the system, or are most of them dropping out before orals?

FOI request for SMART funding stats when?

[MrStealth]

I wonder why there appears to be a disproportionally high number of passes at Liverpool... Purely down to the colleges providing better training? Or a better crop of examiners?

I know there's been issues at Southampton recently...

[Inland Pirate]

Norwich and Belfast have some rather low rates as well... people resitting at home and not doing very well?

[OldSalt]

Looking at the 2016/17 we see cadets attempting some 1437 orals resulting in 874 passing, which is approximately a 60% pass rate. 3 years previous we saw some 900 cadets starting so the figures would suggest very few dropouts resulting in a 97% succuss story......!

[Midge]

Does not account for resits from previous Jan and September intakes or even before that, though old salt. You need the. Umber sitting first time etc to work out the numbers accurately.

[Hatchorder]

Looking at the 2016/17 we see cadets attempting some 1437 orals resulting in 874 passing, which is approximately a 60% pass rate. 3 years previous we saw some 900 cadets starting so the figures would suggest very few dropouts resulting in a 97% succuss story......!

Not quite true, don't forget that quite a few of them will be resits, which is why the number is so high in the first place, but ALL of the colleges have overseas students, which are not included in the recruitment figures of 900 so we do not get a true representation.

Perhaps someone needs to do an FOI request to each recruiting company to look at recruited numbers, drop outs - including reasons (DOR, sacked, missing at sea etc.), passed and finally retained for the same period. Or maybe the people responsible for SMART funding can furbish all of that in one go?

[Hatchorder]

Norwich and Belfast have some rather low rates as well... people resitting at home and not doing very well?

It is funny, when I first wanted to look into this there was a bit of gossip / rumour / old wives tale doing the rounds that if you fail at any office then go to Belfast as their pass rate is higher than everywhere else - how wrong was that for deckies (and the numbers for engineers are too low to properly draw conclusions)!

But yes, in the main - colleges are associated with the bigger offices and so lots of the other offices results may be resits...........

Just looking at the total numbers though I am struck by the disparity between Engineers and Deck results in total:

Deck OOW pass rate 54.2%
Deck Mates pass rate 55.2%
Deck Masters pass rate 60.7%

Eng OOW pass rate 77.1%
Eng 2nds pass rate 72.0%
Eng Chiefs pass rate 82.4%

Virtually 20% across the board..........

Ian

[Hatchorder]

I wonder why there appears to be a disproportionally high number of passes at Liverpool... Purely down to the colleges providing better training? Or a better crop of examiners?

I know there's been issues at Southampton recently...

I do know that there are big differences in the offices in terms of nationalities, and the problem is getting worse, with some offices struggling to recruit examiners\surveyors, especially UK trained/qualified. When you see the salaries on offer it is no wonder. This may also be the reason that some offices have had no exams in particular areas for a couple of years.

You are not wrong on Southampton though.

Ian

[Hatchorder]

I find it hard to believe they don't have all this on hand anyway, for their own internal QA and monitoring

Yup!

My thoughts entirely. I think they are blowing smoke up my arse..... maybe to cover huge discrepancies? The only way to find out would be for a group of people to all stick in the same request, but for each office separately so that it falls below their magic ?600????

I feel a plan coming on!

Ian

[flobbernoggin]

Perhaps someone needs to do an FOI request to each recruiting company to look at recruited numbers, drop outs - including reasons (DOR, sacked, missing at sea etc.), passed and finally retained for the same period. Or maybe the people responsible for SMART funding can furbish all of that in one go?

I just so happen to have a few years of statistics of cadets from a big green box boat company. I would post it here but im not sure of the legality of sharing it.

The stats talk about "wastage" of cadets (broken down per year) as well as the minimum cadets they must have to maintain their tonnage tax.

[YoungMariner]

Great job getting those statistics, very interesting to read.

I didn't realise how many more exams are conducted in South Shields compared to elsewhere. What is worrying is how high the failure rate is, which makes you wonder what is causing that.

[YoungMariner]

Also interesting to see over 200 Master Unlimited licenses being issued per year, didn't expect it to be that high.

[jacob44]

Yup!

The only way to find out would be for a group of people to all stick in the same request, but for each office separately so that it falls below their magic ?600????

I feel a plan coming on!

Ian

I'm in.