The Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry is providing new navigation training ships, which are specially equipped for providing assistance to those in disaster areas, to each of Japan’s five national institutes of technology with courses for training ship crew.
Known as kosen, the colleges will be able to dispatch the training ships for relief missions in disaster-hit areas by providing aid from the sea. Each of the ships will have rooms where evacuees can stay for a prolonged period and will be able to accommodate up to about 50 evacuees, not including crew.
Construction of the last of the five ships will take place in fiscal 2025, which starts on Tuesday. The ministry earmarked a total of ¥24.2 billion for the construction project.
The five kosen colleges each have one navigation training ship for use by their students. Existing training ships will all be replaced by the end of fiscal 2026.
Conventional training ships are not designed to be able to provide disaster relief, and the facilities inside them — study rooms and accommodation for the students — reflect that. Based on the government’s Fundamental Plan for National Resilience compiled in 2014, the ministry decided to provide training ships with relief aid functions and began building the new training ships in fiscal 2021.
japannews.yomiuri.co.jp
