The programme of model training courses developed out of suggestions from a number of IMO Member Governments, following the adoption of the International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers, (STCW), 1978, as amended.
Assisted by contributions from various Governments, IMO has designed the series of courses to help implement this Convention and, further, to facilitate access to the knowledge and skills demanded by increasingly sophisticated maritime technology.
The courses are flexible in application: maritime institutes and their teaching staff can use them in organizing and introducing new courses or in enhancing, updating or supplementing existing training material.
The model courses each include a course framework (detailing the scope, objective, entry standards, and other information about the course), a course outline (timetable), a detailed teaching syllabus (including the learning objectives that should have been achieved when the course has been completed by students), guidance notes for the instructor and a summary of how students should be evaluated.
Many courses include background information for students in a compendium. For some titles these compendia are sold separately from the course. Model courses related to the STCW Convention were revised and updated after the major revision of the Convention in 1995.
Consequent to the adoption of the Manila Amendments in 2010 to the STCW Convention and Code, some of the model courses related to the STCW Convention and Code are being revised and updated.
