Is certification necessary for shallow water diving?

[Eric Sedletzky]

The published standards are high enough, Standards Downloads - WRSTC , but there is no quality control in place to insure instructors actually follow those standards. Students have no idea what they should be taught, it's hard for then to make a judgment and complain, so nothing happens until there is an accident in training, and maybe not even then.

Strange that I didn’t see NAUI listed in the RSTC list of agencies.??

 

[Bob DBF]

Strange that I didn’t see NAUI listed in the RSTC list of agencies.??

They joined in November 2015. News - WRSTC.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Years ago when diving was in it’s infancy many divers getting into it were ex military. A lot of them or most of them were also avid skin divers (freedivers) and hunters.
Scuba was very simple back then. @Bob DBF can attest to the casual environment that was diving then. Many divers didn’t get certified until years later and many hundreds of dives. Bob was one of them. By the way Sam Miller was another and I’m sure there have been several through the years here.
Training came about because of a need.
A lot of divers were getting maimed. By that time the general public took an interest and no longer was it just a bunch of seasoned watermen throwing a tank with an Aqualung on their backs.
So everything progresses.
Once upon a time you could read the Science of Skin and Scuba diving, (later “The New Science if Skin and Scuba Diving”), find a pool somewhere and do all the exercises they outlined, plus read all the physics and if you had good reading comprehension and actually did the in-water skills to full competency and didn’t lie to yourself you could learn everything you needed to know.
Physics don’t change so technically this would work now, but being that we’re a scared bunch of paranoid little sheeple as a society we would never do that. We need an instructor.
Fine, understood, that’s modern society and that’s the way it is.
But just a parting word, if a friend teaches you and shows you the EXACT same open water course in the EXACT SAME WAY a certified Instructor would teach it, what is the difference??
Liability, and you might have to pay the certified instructor some $$$
That’s it.

I posted years ago about an idea to restructure diving certification where a third party certification only agency would issue diving certifications. You could learn to dive anywhere or anyway you wanted to, either from a family member, friend, self study, or a paid instructor. Then when you were ready you went to a place, paid your money and they tested you in an unbiased fashion to full WTSTC standards. If you passed the written and watermanship tests to full satisfaction then you got your certification.
So basically all it would be is separating the instruction side from the testing side to eliminate the fraud and corruption with instructors basically being the gate keeper and passing whoever they want to, (the way it is today).

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

I taught JYC everything he knew

 

[Bob DBF]

Once upon a time you could read the Science of Skin and Scuba diving, (later “The New Science if Skin and Scuba Diving”), find a pool somewhere and do all the exercises they outlined, plus read all the physics and if you had good reading comprehension and actually did the in-water skills to full competency and didn’t lie to yourself you could learn everything you needed to know.

"The New Science if Skin and Scuba Diving" was how my old man learned, and he was my instructor, with a handful of dives. Due to gear constraints, we were only in the water together to practice buddy breathing. I kept diving he quit when he saw what he wanted. The same material was covered 17 years later in my OW course.

That book was the basis for all the training manuals in the new agencies that started. "The New Science if Skin and Scuba Diving" by the Conference for National Cooperation in Aquatics and was a collaboration of the most knowledgeable people in diving and education to produce a book to train divers so that the escalating deaths of scuba divers (interchangable with skin divers at the time) would be stopped. The first edition in 1958 did not have New in the title, that first appeared on the 1962 edition, which was the one I learned on in '62.

 

[Belzelbub]

You mention teaching the diver some rules of physics that can't be ignored (don't hold your breath) and also mask /regulator recovery. My issue is, that is basically all a person learns in some open water courses. That info can only be learned in a certification course?

No. Not at all. Another diver could show them, or they could learn what is needed to dive by watching online videos, etc. That might be enough to be able to dive safely in ideal conditions.

The benefits of getting a certification card is for people or organizations who don't know the diver. In most cases, a card would be required to rent/fill tanks, take a charter, or dive at a private/public controlled dive site. The card provides the operator some level of protection/assurance that the diver has been trained to dive the dives that are being offered. Now, the actual training may have been insufficient, but that's really a problem with the instructor. It's not really up to the Dive Op to ensure that the diver is actually competent. Some actually do check that on a first dive, but it really shouldn't be necessary.

I was at a dive site in Cozumel and there were some newly certified divers that needed help getting the bc and reg setup properly. Certification standards need to be higher.

Poor instruction does not necessarily mean that the standards need to be raised. Ultimately, it's up to the dive op on how they teach. As far as I know, there aren't any Secret Students or audits ensuring that an agency affiliated trainer is teaching to standards. Unfortunately, it's up to students to report. That can be difficult as the student is likely not familiar with the standards.

I have two OW certs from two different agencies. I have two because my first course was so far below standards that it was ridiculous. I had a good grasp on the academic portion, but that was mainly on the academic materials and me being a quick learner. Not so much on the instructor. In water time was pretty much non-existent. A Discover Scuba or rushed resort course would have been an improvement from my first course. The second OW course was the complete opposite. The problem with the first course was not that the standards were deficient, it was that the instructor did not even come close to following the standards.

 

[Waterwulf]

No, a cert card is not required to SCUBA dive. It's also not required to have a drivers license to drive, a pilot's licensee to pilot an aircraft, a permit to skydive, etc. etc. etc. That piece of plastic will never put air back in your tank when you run out at a hundred feet or deploy your reserve canopy. Licenses, cert cards and permits, etc. are all just to verify that you did receive the proper amount of training to do whatever it is you're doing. Yes, some things like driving or piloting require the card to be legal but it has nothing to do with the actual job of piloting, diving or driving, etc.

By the way: Comparing the lack of cert card while SCUBA diving to a lack of a parachute while parachuting is like comparing apples to sea urchins! Not even close! The lack of a cert card means I have no cert card. It does not mean I have no training or experience or proper equipment. It means I won't be able to buy air or go on the dive boat. That's it. Lack or a chute will most likely cause death.

However, even the lack or a parachute while skydiving isn't a death sentence. It can be done and has been done many times. During WWII, the Russians "perfected" a method for delivering ground troop's to the battlefield by air without landing and no parachutes. The pilots would fly along a ridge line as slow and low as they could. The soldiers would jump out onto the slope and slide down. The angle of the slope and depth of the snow cushioned their drop. Most of them survived! It's been done several times since by wing suit flyers landing in piles of cardboard boxes, water, etc.

 

[boulderjohn]

Many years ago an education researcher named John Goodlad led a massive research project to find which educational programs were most effective. Other research projects had tried to do the same thing by comparing the results of one school using one program to another school using another program, but Goodlad went a step further by having researchers go into the classrooms and watching the teachers use those programs. What he learned was that once the classroom door was closed, the teachers pretty much ignored the program they were supposed to be using and did whatever they wanted.

I saw the same thing in my own experience. Teachers often completely ignored the curriculum they were supposed to be using and taught whatever they wanted. These teachers all had certifications that required training far, far beyond what scuba instructors get. They were being supervised by administrators in the building with them, administrators with the power to have them fired and costing them their means of making a living.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

No, a cert card is not required to SCUBA dive. It's also not required to have a drivers license to drive, a pilot's licensee to pilot an aircraft, a permit to skydive, etc. etc. etc. That piece of plastic will never put air back in your tank when you run out at a hundred feet or deploy your reserve canopy. Licenses, cert cards and permits, etc. are all just to verify that you did receive the proper amount of training to do whatever it is you're doing. Yes, some things like driving or piloting require the card to be legal but it has nothing to do with the actual job of piloting, diving or driving, etc.

By the way: Comparing the lack of cert card while SCUBA diving to a lack of a parachute while parachuting is like comparing apples to sea urchins! Not even close! The lack of a cert card means I have no cert card. It does not mean I have no training or experience or proper equipment. It means I won't be able to buy air or go on the dive boat. That's it. Lack or a chute will most likely cause death.

However, even the lack or a parachute while skydiving isn't a death sentence. It can be done and has been done many times. During WWII, the Russians "perfected" a method for delivering ground troop's to the battlefield by air without landing and no parachutes. The pilots would fly along a ridge line as slow and low as they could. The soldiers would jump out onto the slope and slide down. The angle of the slope and depth of the snow cushioned their drop. Most of them survived! It's been done several times since by wing suit flyers landing in piles of cardboard boxes, water, etc.

“Licenses, cert cards and permits, etc. are all just to verify that you did receive the proper amount of training to do whatever it is you're doing.”

This is the nugget right here that some people are taking issue with.
“Proper training” is a subjective term.
How many people went through OW only to realize later they were ripped off and didn’t receive a proper training?
A brand new diver doesn’t know what they don’t know. To say “it’s all about the instructor”, how are they supposed to know what a good instructor is?
They say you need to talk to them. Ok, about what? Maybe a joke instructor has the gift of gab with a sparkling personality and can enchant people but they suck as an instructor.
So the student passes the course (they all do) with a false sense of competency only to find out they were undertrained, and sometimes it’s during an oh sh!t moment that they really find out.
In some cases, certifications aren’t worth the plastic they’re printed on.

 

[OMyMyOHellYes]

No, a cert card is not required to SCUBA dive. It's also not required to have a drivers license to drive, a pilot's licensee to pilot an aircraft,

Can such things be done? I suppose so, but they are, by law, required. Not so much in diving.

In the US at least.