The European education standards assurance and pursuit of quality in education have been announced as strategic aims of the Lithuanian education system in the light of new challenges the society is facing and opportunities offered by democracy, development of market economy and globalization. One of the ways to achieve the aims mentioned above is the implementation of ISO 9000 ("International Organization for Standardization") series standards in higher education institutions. The key aim of the standards is to recommend for an organization how an efficient quality management system should be developed to encourage through its functioning continual development of an organization. The article overviews specific quality requirements for marine training, the development of ISO series standards is discussed, concepts and structures of contemporary quality management systems based on ISO regulations are analysed. The peculiarities of the application of the standards in a tertiary school are revealed and description of the quality management system and its application experience at the Lithuanian Maritime College is presented. (Contains 2 footnotes, 3 tables, and 8 figures.)