The ISTD's chief objective is "to educate the public in the art of dancing in all its forms". To achieve this, the ISTD works in four main ways:

• to promote knowledge of dance

• to maintain and improve teaching standards

• to qualify, by examination, teachers of dancing in the ISTD's specialist techniques taught by our 10,000 members in schools of dancing throughout the world

• to provide, through its syllabi, techniques upon which to train dancers for the profession.