As the trend of ship's automation has spreaded over from 1950's , it caused shipping industries to develop new concept of ship's officer to operate new type of ships with high technologies. As a result, French started the education of Dual Purpose Officer (DPO) from 1967 for mariners who has skills and knowledge in navigation and engineering area. these experiments were concerned mainly with an improved carrier structure for officers, efficiency in ship's operation and subsequent cost saving, and in these years, many advanced countries in shipping business have been interested in the DPO system and adopted it especially in the Northern Europe and Japan. In Jorea there were researches for DPO based on experience of those in foreign countries in the middle of 1980's and established it with revision of relevant domestic regulation in 1990. Korean shipping industry will meet first graduates from DPO program in the near future but it seems that there were not sufficient studies to prepare actual practice. In the paper it was tried to analyze korean DPO system in the structure of education and certification by comparing them with foreign one and found that curriculums of the two maritime universites in Korea are quite suitable under circumstances of domestic shiping industry but some amendments are needed in relevant regulations.

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