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| Sunday, 21 December 2003 |
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Naval Maritime Academy gets colours for the first time by ANTON NONIS The Sri Lanka Navy held a Presidential Colours Award ceremony for one of its naval units, the first of its kind, at the Navy Headquarters, Chaitya Road, Colombo last week. President Chandrika Kumaratunga who was the chief guest at the ceremony, presented the colours. Commodore, Pushpakumara said that the training was provided by the highest naval training institute in the country, the Naval Maritime Academy located in Trincomalee, established in 1973. The training was of a specialised nature and is for both, officers and ratings and conducted in four phases. It is a three-year programme for officers while for the ratings, the period of training is about nine months.The academy is accredited to the University of Kelaniya which recognises the course to be of the highest standards dealing with all defence aspects. Every candidate receives a certificate issued by the university at the successful completion of the course. Commander of the Naval Academy, Sisira Jayakody said that there it has the capacity to accommodate 1,500 trainees for the different courses at a time. The work areas conducted include marine and electrical engineering, diving, combat skills of all types of warfare, both on land and at sea, and other technical fields. The training panel consists of 40 staff officers, most of whom have graduated from the country's defence academies. The panel is headed by a commandant. The academy is also bent on popularising itself among foreign nationals. It has already provided training for ten Maldivians in different aspects of fire fighting which course had lasted for seven months. A new batch from the Maldive Islands is due to arrive in Sri Lanka on another training mission early next year. Navy sources said that an expansion of the infrastructure is being considered in order to recruit more people for training. There is great demand by the navies in other countries to get training for their men and is on a `government-to-government' basis. |
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