Coming Soon – PADI® Certification Cards Transition to PADI eCards™

[Manatee Diver]

As divers who are supposed to be guardians of the oceans shouldn't we be happy about any agency who is finally going away from plastic cards?

Except the issue isn't plastic, it is plastic that is improperly disposed of particularly single use plastic.

A card that will sit in my card wallet for the next 30 years isn't contributing to plastic waste.

 

[Marie13]

PADI apparently wraps a lot of their materials in shrink wrap. How about stopping that?

 

[Steve_C]

Much plastic wrap can be recycled now at the drop offs at some of the grocery stores.

 

[TMHeimer]

I agree that plastic cards like these, credit cards, etc. are one of the least environmental problems we face.

 

[loosenit2]

PADI has nothing to do with price of any course, individual instructor and facilities do. Every location / area have different expenses and costs to conduct a class. Price of course is usually determined by what the customers are willing to pay in a given location. Price it too low and you go out of business, price it too high and customers may go elsewhere. It is up to the instructor or facility to determine what the market will bear while returning a profit. Courses are sold too low as it is . When I did my ow course 50 + years ago it cost $50 . I was a 18 year old kid making $87.50 a week. Today I do not get out of bed in the am for less than $1,800. Now with cost of living figured in a ow course should be around $1,000 +. That does not include the 4 ow certification dives.

I understand what you are trying to say but you may be oversimplifying. PADI does have something to do with the price of every course, by setting costs for the training material and admin fees (i.e. cards) that are required of the course. If they set the cost of the training material at $0 then they would have nothing to do with the cost of a course. I understand that those fees may be a small portion of the overall course fee, but it is still a part and is therefore instructors have to take those costs into account when setting their prices for courses.

I also understand your analogy on inflation and the cost of the courses. You appear to discount that costs for things tend to go down over time as efficiencies and scales of production increase, that is a normal market trend. Another perspective might be that the OW course you took in the 50s taught you x,y,z (as has been talked many times in other threads on old school training vs new school training); wheras modern courses only teach you x and you have to take AOW, plus a specialty to get y & z. So a true comparison would have to include the skills you learned in your class in the 50s compared to the total costs of courses to get those same skills today, and then adjusted for inflation.

 

[oly5050user]

I understand what you are trying to say but you may be oversimplifying. PADI does have something to do with the price of every course, by setting costs for the training material and admin fees (i.e. cards) that are required of the course. If they set the cost of the training material at $0 then they would have nothing to do with the cost of a course. I understand that those fees may be a small portion of the overall course fee, but it is still a part and is therefore instructors have to take those costs into account when setting their prices for courses.

I also understand your analogy on inflation and the cost of the courses. You appear to discount that costs for things tend to go down over time as efficiencies and scales of production increase, that is a normal market trend. Another perspective might be that the OW course you took in the 50s taught you x,y,z (as has been talked many times in other threads on old school training vs new school training); wheras modern courses only teach you x and you have to take AOW, plus a specialty to get y & z. So a true comparison would have to include the skills you learned in your class in the 50s compared to the total costs of courses to get those same skills today, and then adjusted for inflation.

Skills taught years ago really not so different from today, course has actually have become more efficient and streamlined with clearly defined objectives to what may have taken in a week or more depending on pool time availability to I can now do in a 3 day weekend in our in-house pool at our LDS . Most LDS charge fee for course separate from what learning materials cost. Years ago we were required to purchase learning materials as well. All associated costs of running a business have gone up since 60’s. Rent, electric, gas, etc have gone up for all of us, training agencies as well.

 

[loosenit2]

Skills taught years ago really not so different from today, course has actually have become more efficient and streamlined with clearly defined objectives to what may have taken in a week or more depending on pool time availability to I can now do in a 3 day weekend in our in-house pool at our LDS . Most LDS charge fee for course separate from what learning materials cost. Years ago we were required to purchase learning materials as well. All associated costs of running a business have gone up since 60’s. Rent, electric, gas, etc have gone up for all of us, training agencies as well.

I agree that the individual skills have not changed much but what skills are taught in any individual class have changed over the years. For example with the introduction of Advanced OW in 1967 some skills were moved from the OW class to the AOW class. My assumption is that with the introduction of Rescue some skills were further distributed to other classes.

From the PADI History site: “In the early years, PADI grew slowly. Ralph had a vision for continuing educational course structure versus the know it all entry level course designed to weed people out and structured off of military training that was dominate at that time. In 1967, PADI introduced its first advanced diver course and first specialty diver programs. By the late 1960s, PADI had 400 members, but it was still a struggling entity”

I have not been able to find the course lengths or what was covered in the early days of PADI training, but I’m sure several members of SB have them. It would be interesting to compare those with what is done now for a true side by side comparison.

 

[Marie13]

Much plastic wrap can be recycled now at the drop offs at some of the grocery stores.

Forget about recycling. Why do the materials need to be shrink wrapped in the first place?

 

[TMHeimer]

I agree that the individual skills have not changed much but what skills are taught in any individual class have changed over the years. For example with the introduction of Advanced OW in 1967 some skills were moved from the OW class to the AOW class. My assumption is that with the introduction of Rescue some skills were further distributed to other classes.

From the PADI History site: “In the early years, PADI grew slowly. Ralph had a vision for continuing educational course structure versus the know it all entry level course designed to weed people out and structured off of military training that was dominate at that time. In 1967, PADI introduced its first advanced diver course and first specialty diver programs. By the late 1960s, PADI had 400 members, but it was still a struggling entity”

I have not been able to find the course lengths or what was covered in the early days of PADI training, but I’m sure several members of SB have them. It would be interesting to compare those with what is done now for a true side by side comparison.

I see what you're saying and have usually been in on the discussions about important rescue skills no longer in the OW course since many years ago (I wasn't into scuba until 2005 so have no recollection except reading stuff here).
I recently heard that NAUI does in fact teach rescue skills in OW course-- stuff like dealing with panicked diver, etc. I didn't know that. I assume the NAUI OW course would then cost than PADI's.

 

[Steve Fenton]

Quick question to everyone. Are the stupid PADI ecards printable ? if so how the hell do you do it and secondly is it possible to see your ecards on a laptop or tablet as I sure as hell cant find a way to do. Thanks in advance everyone.