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from engineers to technicians, who should be responsible for construction, 
operation and maintenance of facilities and equipment. A fifth category, 
that of the research workers, has to ensure further progress through 
interdisciplinary work. The sixth and last category is that of the teachers, 
responsible for the education and training of the various groups of 
personnel and the related development and production of educational 
materials. 
Type and levels of competence required, and thus education or training to 
be provided, do not only vary from category to category, but also within 
each separate category. In the first and second categories for example, 
some need to have a general awareness of remote sensing and its practical 
and policy aspects, whereas others must have a sufficient technical background 
to coordinate activities regarding specific applications and to establish 
facilities for remote sensing. 
As stated before, the third category should consist of personnel who have 
learned to apply remote sensing in their normal professions or jobs, to 
solve problems in particular disciplines or fields. Hence the remote sensing 
education or training has to be complementary to their basical education 
and has to depend on the functions to be perfermed. The diversity of the 
fields of application has already been mentioned. The scala of functions 
ranges from highly qualified professionals to personnel at technician or 
even lower level performing simple tasks (Refs. 2, 5, 8, 9). There exists 
a rather widespread consensus amongst the remote sensing education community 
and employers that students should have a solid background in one of the 
traditional disciplines before doing additional work in remote sensing. 
(Refs. 21, 22). 
Technical support personnel, the fourth categery, should have a different 
type of education or training, and need manuals with instructiens for 
performing technical tasks. It is noteworthy that educational and training 
opportunities for this type of personnel are still very scarce and mainly 
limited to on-the-job training, often organized by manufacturers of 
equipment with relatively little educational and didactical experience 
(Refs. 9, 24), 
The fifth and sixth categories, research workers and educational staff, 
are those who require an in-depth education in remote sensing technology. and 
remote sensing image processing, often combined with a solid background 
in one or more of the application areas, more than anyone else. 
All planning of remote sensing education and training and assessment of 
its quality has to be based on the qualitative and quantitative requirements 
of a personnel pyramid ranging frem decision-makers and planners, managers, 
productien personnel and technical support staff to research workers and 
teachers, The wide spectrum of these groups, and the almost equally large 
variation in applications, methods and techniques, makes it impossible to 
design standard curricula or define standard levels of competence, 
At the very best an attempt could be made to define standards of competence 
for professionals applying remote sensing per region (f.i. North America, 
Latin America, Europe, etc.) and per discipline (such as geology, ecology 
and agriculture, etc.) on the basis of the predominant techniques applied: 
mainly digital and subsidiary visual/optical analysis in North America, 
a mix of digital and visual/optical work in Europe, mainly visual/optical 
work in Africa and large parts of Asia, etc. It will then be the responsibility 
of the professionals concerned to establish standards of competence for their 
own profession. 
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