International Diving Schools Association

International Diving Schools Association (IDSA)^[1] was formed in 1982 with the primary purpose of developing common international standards for commercial diver training.

The Association is concerned with offshore, inshore and inland commercial diving and some specialist non-diving qualifications such as diving supervisors, diving medical technicians and life support technicians. It has published international diver training standards^[2] based on the consensus of members which provide a basic standard of comparison for commercial diver training standards, with the stated intention of:-

• Improving safety
• Providing contractors with a direct input to the diver training syllabus
• Enabling contractors to bid across national borders on a more even playing field
• Improving diver quality
• Providing divers with greater job opportunities

IDSA provides a Table of Equivalence of various national commercial diver training standards.^[3]

References

1. International Diving Schools Association official website http://www.idsaworldwide.org/ accessed 13 September 2013
2. Staff, IDSA,(2009), International Diver Training Certification: Diver Training Standards, Revision 4, October 2009 http://www.idsaworldwide.org/docs/diverts0909.pdf Accessed 13 September 2013
3. Staff, IDSA, (2012)The IDSA Table of Equivalence: A List of Schools teaching the IDSA Standards together with their National equivalent 6 January 2012, http://www.idsaworldwide.org/docs/toe2012.pdf accessed 13 September 2013