Are Thai trained instructors looked down on and turned away in Oz

[adaminhongkong]

Hey guys,

Im an Aussie living in Hong Kong saving up and then planning to do my DM and Inst cert in Thailand. I've been crossing off the top 10 dive locations in the world one by one each holiday and still from day one I fell in love with Kao Lak and the Similian Islands.

Did my open water and on my4th ever dive got to dive close up with a few mantas and was hooked ever since......

I read a tread saying in Oz Thai trained inst are turned away and not given work in oz and nz.......

FELLOW AUSSIE DIVERS WHO WORK IN THE INDRUSTRY CAN YOU PLEASE CONFIRM OR TELL ME THIS IS A MYTH?

ALSO ANY THAI TRAINED DIVERS WHO NEVER HAVE ANY PROBLEMS GETTING WORK THAT WOULD BE HELPFUL TOO

Because for me the most professional and well run dive shop I've met so far has to be Scuba Junction which is a British owned and run shop in Koh Tao. I thought they were so good I got my 61year old mum to do her open water there and she loved it!

It really is a shame crappy operations have given all of them a bad name.

Any advice will help

Cheers,
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[ozzydamo]

Hey guys,

Im an Aussie living in Hong Kong saving up and then planning to do my DM and Inst cert in Thailand. I've been crossing off the top 10 dive locations in the world one by one each holiday and still from day one I fell in love with Kao Lak and the Similian Islands.

Did my open water and on my4th ever dive got to dive close up with a few mantas and was hooked ever since......

I read a tread saying in Oz Thai trained inst are turned away and not given work in oz and nz.......

FELLOW AUSSIE DIVERS WHO WORK IN THE INDRUSTRY CAN YOU PLEASE CONFIRM OR TELL ME THIS IS A MYTH?

ALSO ANY THAI TRAINED DIVERS WHO NEVER HAVE ANY PROBLEMS GETTING WORK THAT WOULD BE HELPFUL TOO

Because for me the most professional and well run dive shop I've met so far has to be Scuba Junction which is a British owned and run shop in Koh Tao. I thought they were so good I got my 61year old mum to do her open water there and she loved it!

It really is a shame crappy operations have given all of them a bad name.

Any advice will help

Cheers,
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I am not employed in the charter/instructor side of things, but I have had lucid discussions about this with many dive shop operators.
I have never heard of people being knocked back because of where they got trained- but for their lack of training or ability to deliver the course in a comprehensive, positive and confident manner.
Australia is harder to find work overall because of the lower turnover to places like thailand/redsea/carribean.

Really; fortune favors the brave and passionate- sales skills are very important, you are selling the service, word of mouth in OZ in very important.

Doing an internship in LOS, would be a great starting place to get a log book going(do a digital log with depth/AC graph), if I was a diver operator I would look at your gear firstly, your log and then how you carry yourself on land in politeness/manner/knowledge and most importantly how well you dive....to be honest I wouldn't really take a instructor on with less then 500dives what ever country it was- which is why Thailand is good for you now...to clock up lots of dives!

Go for it Ads, don't get discouraged, enjoy yourself and the experiences diving will bring you mate.

Damo'

 

[phuonguyen]

I can't speak for all of Australia, but in the local area of Brisbane, the PADI and SDI/TDI shop, are a pretty close knit group in their own circles; ie TDI shops stick together and PADI talk to each other. The PADI shops about, specifically mine, will not employ a DM/Instructor fresh out of Thailand. We have them assist on several classes before even considering them. The tales you hear about Thailand are true, and I've seen DM and Instructor level qualifications on people that couldn't be more than AOW, in terms of in water skills; I haven't seen them demo skills but who knows. But we don't often employ instuctors as we have several Instuctors and we're an 5*IDC as well.

TL;DR I'd expect most shops to ask you to assist in their most popular class to evaluate where you are in terms of professional standing; from there they will make a decision. Also, this is about shops that are not desperate for instructors, but having another one would make their life easier!

 

[FuAn]

If one would turn me down for that reason I would not want to work for him anyway...

There are very good CDs in Thailand and they have lots of experience due to many students... If one claims that someone cert as instructor in Thailand doesn't fulfill the requirements why don't he file a QA case? I'm sure if he has proof the agencies would be interested in it...

And why would a German, British, Australian, Dutch... CD working in Thailand be not as good as one working in Australia, Europe or US????

My opinion it's bull****!


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[Griffo]

There's certainly a prevailing attitude in melbourne that tropical trained divers aren't qualified for our waters. I think it's a bit arrogant to be honest but it is what it is. Not sure how that relates to employment.

 

[cascas]

The tales you hear about Thailand are true, and I've seen DM and Instructor level qualifications on people that couldn't be more than AOW, in terms of in water skills;

Why would they be ? Water skills are only taught in OW and a little in AOW ( navigation, ppb perhaps but not much more) Rescue ? No dive skills at all.... DM You are supposed to know what to do an when and are just polished up to demo level and trained in problem solving. Instructors do not acquire extra dive skills that DM's do not already have, they only get trained teaching methods..

Dive skills are acquired by diving... a lot...

 

[ozzydamo]

There's certainly a prevailing attitude in melbourne that tropical trained divers aren't qualified for our waters. I think it's a bit arrogant to be honest but it is what it is. Not sure how that relates to employment.

That's probably a fairer comment, dry suit divers are rare in Thailand(also queensland)- but there is lots of very experienced dry-suit divers that are instructors in Thailand. The livestock boats that run over 30 divers at a time need to have quality staff to avoid incidence. As Fuan has stated, the greater workload and task loading on instructors in the Thai holiday environment means that divers that have actual worked there for extended periods-not just a insta-instructor, zero to hero trainee- means that you get instructors that have trained many more students then an instructor from Brisbane.
Who is better? that's an individually, assessable thing.


Do you want to be the guy that carries the tanks and puts up with customers little tanties?
Has to watch everyone(as they enjoy themselves!) and do the same paper work all the time?

It takes a special person to want to teach others and that person really should be an excellent diver for the conditions they dive, but there is more to being an instructor, there's the mentorial and motivational side, you need to be a good communicator able to get excited, easily side tracked people's attention and make it easy for them to remember what and when to do the things they must to be safe and become good divers.
Tropical diving is the most popular type of diving in the world, learning in Thailand is very cost effective, they have lower overheads and less regulations and legal commitments, that's what some dive ops in Australia don't like! because they must compete against that in a cheap airfare market to compound their problem even more so.......

 

[FuAn]

And i'd say the average customer in Thailand is more difficult to handle and supervise than those guys diving at home with dry suits...


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[phuonguyen]

If one would turn me down for that reason I would not want to work for him anyway...

There are very good CDs in Thailand and they have lots of experience due to many students... If one claims that someone cert as instructor in Thailand doesn't fulfill the requirements why don't he file a QA case? I'm sure if he has proof the agencies would be interested in it...

*Shrugs shoulders*
Regardless of whether there are good/bad/ugly CDs in Thailand or Australia, the fact of the matter still stands. We allow them to assist, to gauge their skills before employing them, it would be bringing a flame to a fuse to employ someone who you have no knowledge of teaching/assisting ability for your course environment.

About the QA, I can only report standard violations that I see myself, that means that I need to see the instructor/DM not being taught something by their Instructor/CD; just because I see crappy waterskills doesn't mean that there has been standard breeches. They could potentially have forgotten/don't care for this ecosystem or for any reason.

Why would they be ? Water skills are only taught in OW and a little in AOW ( navigation, ppb perhaps but not much more) Rescue ? No dive skills at all.... DM You are supposed to know what to do an when and are just polished up to demo level and trained in problem solving. Instructors do not acquire extra dive skills that DM's do not already have, they only get trained teaching methods..

Dive skills are acquired by diving... a lot...

Exactly, they haven't taken the time to polish their skills as they are diving, I've heard people say that they've gone down to 5m sat on the chain, logged 20minutes and then have come up (rinse and repeat) to get their 60 or 100 dives. They're in a great place with super cheap diving, heaps of opportunities to get that high level of water skills and their skills I find lacking; that's my issue with it. Would you prefer it if all the DM/instructors teach planted on the bottom, but with excellent demonstrations? That paints a very unrealistic environment to the student, I think.
But would you expect an instructor to have better skills than a DM? I certainly do! They're teaching the new divers and I would hope that they have good water skills to rolemodel them to new OW students all the way through to DM candidates that they are mentoring!!

 

[adaminhongkong]

Cheers damo, what you said really hit home...... I'm a freediver and spearfisherman at heart (sorry for killing the stuff we enjoy guys but everyones gotta eat) and I work as an English teacher and enjoy teaching...... I know I can already keep up with DMs when diving and am just looking forward to the whole thing really. Cheers mate!