The STCW Basic Safety Training Course is a five-day training course made up of four separate modules. To find out what the STCW Basic Safety Training (BST) course will cost you, click here.
While some schools refer to their modules by different titles, the course names given below are essentially what you will find. Regardless of title, however, the information in parenthesis refers exactly to the corresponding STCW ’95 code sections:
- STCW Personal Survival Techniques (Ref A-VI/1-1): 1½ days of basic sea survival; this course includes a practical session in a swimming pool. Some schools will take two full days for this module.
- STCW Fire Prevention and Basic Firefighting (Ref A-VI/1-2): This two-day course includes both theory and live fire scenarios.
- STCW First Aid and CPR (Ref A-VI/1-3): 1 day of CPR and first aid training. Some schools will take two full days for this module.
- STCW Personal Safety and Social Responsibility (Ref A-VI/1-4): A half day of learning effective communication, use of safety equipment, using appropriate escape routes, and more. This 4-hour module is usually taught on the same day as the second day of Personal Survival.
With the exception of Personal Safety and Social Responsibility (PSSR), which is classroom instruction only, the modules are made up of both theory and practical learning. This means there’s a lot of hands-on training where you will be required to perform certain skills.
The order that the modules are written into the STCW requirements is not necessarily the order in which they will be taken during a BST five-day course, and the number of days devoted to each module may also vary depending on the institution offering the training. For example, there are some maritime schools around the world that may take five to seven days to complete this same training, such as by offering three days of fire school as opposed to only two. The most common structure, however, is four modules over a period of five days.
*And please note that, based on the Manila Amendments, there could be a new module required as of January 2014. This will be in maritime security awareness for all crew that do not have specific security duties and more training for crew that do have security responsibilities. Please keep updated via the various training school sites.
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