How to get agencies back on track?

[Guba]

This thread was broken out of another one under the suggestion of SB mods. In that thread, references were made about dilemmas arising from agency standards. This thread is to solicit imput about how these problems might be addressed.

As this discussion has evolved, a number of opinions and hypotheses keep popping up (yeah, I know...sometimes from the same posters, but that's irrelevant). Some of these are...
1) PADI standards have slipped and continue to slide down the slippery slope
2) Although instructors may teach above the standards, there is nothing to compel them to do so.
3) Other agencies, over time, have followed PADI down the slope by amending their standards to closely approximate PADI's.

However, though these contentions are made time and again, not only here but in countless threads over the years, one thing is nearly always missing...

The solution.

So now I will ask. EXACTLY what, pray tell, needs to be done to fix the problem? Now before everyone pipes up, let's set some ground rules. The answer cannot be a)"send in your PADI c-card and go somewhere else "down the street" b) "Make PADI like MY certifying agency" c) "storm the PADI offices and hang the management team" or anything like these.
Instead, cite specific standards that need to be amended, added, or chucked. Describe what the practice/guideline should be, but please stay away from nebulous suggestions such as "change from a money-making mentality to one that is more diver friendly". We have to be real...it's a business. The question is, "how would YOU make this business better"?

I'm sorry if this is a thread hijack. If there's real interest, I'll make it another thread. However, way too many posts on this board center around the "problems with PADI" and subsequent polarized arguments. Here is your chance to be constructive and have a positive impact on the diving community. Surely, dive agencies have people who occassionally listen to divers, and this is your chance to make your voice heard.

 

[scubajcf]

Agencies are not the problem or the solution.

The answer is at the shop (LDS) level. When you sell/take a course that cost $99, then that is exactly the course you are going to get. A $99 course.

Shops need to set up a quality course that ensures proper teaching methods, skill mastery, practice time, and quantifiable benchmarks for passing and failing. And yes, from time to time, people have to fail. Doesn't mean they can't pass eventually.

Once they have this course/curriculum in place, figure out how to charge for it. The class should NOT be a loss leader. It should stand alone to make money for the shop and the staff. I know a lot of people don't want to hear this, but this will result in a more difficult course that costs more. However, you will learn more, feel like you got your monies worth, and most importantly, not only be certified ... be qualified.

Until then, courses are only a feeder for equipment business where 80 to 90 of a shop's gross profit is made.



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[Walter]

Exactly what problem are you trying to correct?

 

[Thalassamania]

There are only two solutions that I see, one is forcing government regulation, and that might not improve anything. The other lies in an agency bitting the bullet by offering quality programs and spending the money needed to create product differentiation. I can't see that happening in a industry as small as diving (remember bocce ball is a bigger industry).

So all a responsible instructor can do is teach WAY above standards and gadfly the agencies.

 

[rstofer]

Probably the only realistic way to improve training is to remove it from resorts and dive shops. Training is just that: a place to go to get trained (YMCA, college/university). Car dealers don't provide driver's training. Neither does DMV. There is a clear separation between training, retail and licensing. The same could be true for SCUBA. It would be ugly; but it would work.

Then you could create a federal licensing operation that was uniform across the states (don't want to interfere with the Interstate Commerce clause) and have federal examination/licensing centers. Everyone would need to know all about diving in conditions they will never see using equipment a bureaucrat thinks is adequate.

None of which would work!

People want to learn just enough to dive at resorts under DM supervision. If that is the real market then that's where the entry training level will stop. They want to look at fish; they don't want to become marine biologists.

For those people that want to do more with diving, there are additional courses. Certainly AOW and Rescue come to mind. Those and a few specialties like night diving, dry suit diving, deep diving, etc. for those that are interested. Even then, the divers aren't trained on wrecks, caves and deco/really deep. And there is absolutely no need that they be so trained. If they aren't going to do the dives, why waste time learning how?

Your basic premise that the existing level of training is inadequate or slipping is, IMHO, just wrong. Sure, they don't crank out Navy SEALS but the vast majority of people don't want to swim 4000 meters as a qualification. If that was the criteria there would probably be a dozen divers in the entire world.

There just aren't enough fatalities to matter. A few divers, more or less, just isn't important. You might even find that more divers die driving to dive sites than diving after they arrive. People die, one way or another, and they have the right to choose how.

I think the training courses make it perfectly clear just where the limit is for each level of diver. Now look at the number of people posting here about how, with their OW certification, they are diving to 80 fsw and pushing the NDL. These people are actively choosing to die. What's the problem? It's not like they weren't told they were unqualified!

I think the argument that training is inadequate or has slipped is wrong. It is what it is because that is what the market wants to buy. And people make choices...

Richard

 

[OldNSalty]

What I find odd is that if one agency, say YMCA, decides that the minimum for their students is X then obviously that is what they are going to teach-they aren't going to add to the minimum, they have defined what counts as a certification. If X is the minimum then why do they recognize students who have been 'certified' by less? I mean, think of colleges; an accredited college would define a BS as 120 semester hours of course work-Why would they allow someone into grad school who's degree came from a college that awarded a BS after only 45 semester hours?

I guess what I am saying is that these agencies, all of them, are being hypocritical in defining what counts as a certification and then recognizing everyone else who teaches less.

But to answer your question-I am not sure you can raise the standards unless you get a number of agencies,dive shops and charters to stop recognizing certifications from other agencies until the standards are raised. I simply don't see that happening especially when the agency that holds the majority is the one that most people say has the lowest standards.

Isn't this something like 'leave no child behind so they entire class gets stupid'?

I'm just ranting-sorry but here's a question-why does it matter? Are you worried about getting an inst-buddy from an agency who's standards you hold in contempt? If so, ask for the c-card and don't dive with them.

 

[Guba]

Your basic premise that the existing level of training is inadequate or slipping is, IMHO, just wrong.

Just for the record...It's not necessarily my premise. It just keeps popping up in threads all the time. I'll leave it to those more knowlegable than me as to whether it's fact or opinion.
Guba

 

[Wookie]

Although I was not trained to any NASDS standards, I did work as a PADI instructor for a little while in an NASDS shop. Why? The only folks that wanted an 11 module open water course up to and including rescue skills was.. Uhhh... No-one. Everyone wanted a 2 day PADI course, even though the price was the same. This was in New England, where everyone SHOULD have taken an 11 module 4 week course for diving in 42 degree water. The customer determines the market, not the training agency. The store owner was an NASDS instructor (and PADI instructor) who didn't want to dumb down her course to a 2 weekend cold water course. What's she teaching now? With NASDS gone, PADI.
Frank

 

[Thalassamania]

What I find odd is that if one agency, say YMCA, decides that the minimum for their students is X then obviously that is what they are going to teach-they aren't going to add to the minimum, they have defined what counts as a certification. If X is the minimum then why do they recognize students who have been 'certified' by less? I mean, think of colleges; an accredited college would define a BS as 120 semester hours of course work-Why would they allow someone into grad school who's degree came from a college that awarded a BS after only 45 semester hours?

I guess what I am saying is that these agencies, all of them, are being hypocritical in defining what counts as a certification and then recognizing everyone else who teaches less.

The only way in which agencies "recognize" each others' certifications is in terms of prerequisites for courses. This is really rather irrelevant because at the end of the course the students have to meet the standards of the agency under whose standards the course is run.

But to answer your question-I am not sure you can raise the standards unless you get a number of agencies,dive shops and charters to stop recognizing certifications from other agencies until the standards are raised. I simply don't see that happening especially when the agency that holds the majority is the one that most people say has the lowest standards.

Isn't this something like 'leave no child behind so they entire class gets stupid'?

I'm just ranting-sorry but here's a question-why does it matter? Are you worried about getting an inst-buddy from an agency who's standards you hold in contempt? If so, ask for the c-card and don't dive with them.

It has nothing to do with whom you buddy with, the issue has to do with the frustration of many quality instructor to be able to market quality courses in the face of the uninformed consuming public.

 

[SteveAD]

Although I was not trained to any NASDS standards, I did work as a PADI instructor for a little while in an NASDS shop. Why? The only folks that wanted an 11 module open water course up to and including rescue skills was.. Uhhh... No-one. Everyone wanted a 2 day PADI course, even though the price was the same. This was in New England, where everyone SHOULD have taken an 11 module 4 week course for diving in 42 degree water. The customer determines the market, not the training agency. The store owner was an NASDS instructor (and PADI instructor) who didn't want to dumb down her course to a 2 weekend cold water course. What's she teaching now? With NASDS gone, PADI.
Frank

Bang on! Consumers want a fast course. I actually have had people ask if the class really HAS to take two WHOLE weekends. In this time of instant messaging, email, and microwaves, if they have to wait 5 minutes it's just too long. The current model of a quicky course to qualify a tourist to play follow the leader with a divemaster and then a continuing ed ladder to turn them into "real divers" is what works.