Hi Lostboy,
I think it would be better if the schools were regulated and had to conform to existing IMCA guidelines ITO admission criteria and ensure that the course is relevant and meets the needs of the industry. If you take a tech (mech/elec/electronics/hydraulics) and follow the IMCA ROV training guidelines (ROV induction, hydraulic and electrical safety as a minimum as described by IMCA in the guidance notes), make the trainee understand the competence scheme and how to prepare for an assessment in the field, you shoul dbe good to go. This will take about 2 weeks.
This idea of regulating the schools is not new. They do it for dive training, but not ROV hence we have so many bodies doing courses with little or no chance of getting work afterwards as no company would consider a non-tech on the basis of a 3-8 week ROV course with tech add-ons.
If this regulation started, schools that are dodgy would not pass audits and would lack the IMCA-accreditation to do the training so hopefully potential students would stay away as the qualification would be uselss. I mean, who would do a commercial diving course at a commercial diving school that is not accredited by IMCA to present adn issue IMCA-recognised certs?
If this were done, the schools that are not up to scratch would have to either shut down or pick up the standard.
Aslo, it would men that a ccourse delegate who completes, passes and earns a P/T II cert of competence (not to be confused with completing the 10 core P/T II competencies as a certain school on the west coast of Scotland does), the certificate woul mean something.