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In my part of the country, water is cold, dark, and in some places fast. Most new divers don't meet WRSTC requirements in that they need to be babysat with a pro or experienced diver. Most don't know how to plan a dive really. All agency materials are pretty poor in that respect IMHO.
I was Certified in 1987. The training wasn’t very good. The manuals were virtually nonexistent. There were few external sources of information.
That is a sad indictment of the instructors and QA, not so much the training materials. All instructors should be training to the point of mastery - the issue is that this is a very subjective test. Some instructors will say that one successful demonstration of a skill is mastery, others will require multiple successful demos.
I guess I was pretty lucky with mine - I feel that my instructor taught me enough to go out in UK waters (often green and low vis) with enough confidence to plan a dive and carry it out safely and also to have the confidence to call a dive when it didn't feel right. The expectation in the UK is that you WILL dive in independent pairs and both divers had better be able to plan their dives, lead/follow as required m