Is there an instructor crisis?

[tomfcrist]

Yes, the 8-dive random uncle and the instructor with at least 100 dives may both be relative newbs, and that's what I understood @berndo to be saying in essence--that he wasn't so sure the random uncle with 8 dives would do a "better" job than the instructor with at least 100 dives. While it may be more likely the trained instructor, despite possibly having as few as 100 dives, would do a better job than the random uncle, they could very well do an equally poor job, and in the end they are both relatively inexperienced. Before that post, it seemed as though some were arguing that any random diver could teach scuba well enough. Comparing the random diver with your grandfather, with 30 years of experience, seems beside the point.

Yeah, but let’s be real…how many prospective divers are going to go to a freshly certified diver(8 dives) for mentorship. Conversely, I could see a bunch of newb divers (50-100 dives) thinking they are capable of teaching/mentoring a prospective diver. It’s a double edge sword. This is what spawned the scuba clubs who used the most experienced divers to mentor the newbs…eventually leading those scuba clubs to create formal training and charging money for it. As soon as money enters the equation, so does liability and duty of care. This cycle continues to today, where the liability is so extreme that insurance is so expensive that instructors would rather just dive by themselves for fun and avoid the cost…but more importantly in this litigious society (mainly speaking of the US), the liability.

No bull, when/if my daughter wants to learn to dive, I’m going to teach her. When she’s competent, I’ll have some random instructor certify her. Why not activate and certify her myself? Because it will be exponentially cheaper to pay someone else to do it.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

I completely agree...but the formal agency instruction sets (or should) the foundation for this future knowledge. IMO, those saying formal training by a SCUBA instructor isn't necessary to dive are off their rocker.

See post #329.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Yeah, but let’s be real…how many prospective divers are going to go to a freshly certified diver(8 dives) for mentorship. Conversely, I could see a bunch of newb divers (50-100 dives) thinking they are capable of teaching/mentoring a prospective diver. It’s a double edge sword. This is what spawned the scuba clubs who used the most experienced divers to mentor the newbs…eventually leading those scuba clubs to create formal training and charging money for it. As soon as money enters the equation, so does liability and duty of care. This cycle continues to today, where the liability is so extreme that insurance is so expensive that instructors would rather just dive by themselves for fun and avoid the cost…but more importantly in this litigious society (mainly speaking of the US), the liability.

No bull, when/if my daughter wants to learn to dive, I’m going to teach her. When she’s competent, I’ll have some random instructor certify her. Why not activate and certify her myself? Because it will be exponentially cheaper to pay someone else to do it.

I proposed in another thread that a diver could theoretically learn to dive by several other ways besides signing up for a conventional OW class. My proposal was to have a separate certification only agency that tests and certifies divers that would be independent of formal instruction. My point was that there is too much corruption with instructors having the ability to certify their own students. To who’s standards? Right. Yeah, we know how that goes. So in other words a person could learn to dive by any method they choose including self study or a paid instructor and when they are ready they go to the testing place and get their official certification, good for any boat, charter, or air fill.
Some people liked the idea, but most people argue and think I’m nuts

In my area there IS an instructor crisis. I’m speculating that in 3-5 years there will be no instructors left, then what? I guess diving pretty much dies locally because no new divers coming in means shops will dry up. Rising costs of rent, cost of doing business, and insurance is all going up and will choke out the already struggling shops and the whole sport eventually will die. Maybe in little PADI tropical two day course dreamland everything is honky dory but not here.

I’m seeing self study and mentorship as possibly the only alternative in my area for the sport to survive in the future. At least it still not illegal to do it that way.
I see the possibility of an alternative diving society that goes rogue and dumps organized certification as we know it. There are isolated communities up on the coast where this type of thinking could become quite real.

That is my earlier point (for those who were wondering) about who gets sued when there really isn’t anyone to sue. Just like freediving.
Does anyone besides me ever stop and think about how far the legal machine has gone to close or shut down so many things for profit that we once enjoyed?

 

[Pressurehead]

No bull, when/if my daughter wants to learn to dive, I’m going to teach her. When she’s competent, I’ll have some random instructor certify her. Why not activate and certify her myself? Because it will be exponentially cheaper to pay someone else to do it.

And ask if they don't mind if you 'tag along' and hang around in the back ground and just watch, this is what I have done with family.

Edit: The wife said I gave away too much info, deleted what happened on her OW course.

 

[berndo]

I see the possibility of an alternative diving society that goes rogue and dumps organized certification as we know it. There are isolated communities up on the coast where this type of thinking could become quite real.

What you're describing is basically a BSAC or CMAS dive club. Why not look into starting a club?

 

[Lorenzoid]

What you're describing is basically a BSAC or CMAS dive club. Why not look into starting a club?

I have long envied the BSAC system and wished we had that here in the US. GUE is as close to a club atmosphere as I have found, and that is part of what I found appealing about GUE.

 

[ofg-1]

If you believe DEMA , the scuba industry generates about $11bln a year, US equipment sales at the wholesale level of about $600 mil.

I cannot see any financial incentive for the industry to change standards or certification levels. There is always going to be a percentage of people that want to be divemasters and instructors. Out of that group, there will be good ones, mediocre ones, and lousy ones. Some stay with it, others don't.

The insurance companies don't care. Their business is gambling that they take in more than they pay out, and most are very successful. You don't like the insurance costs, someone else will pay them. If you need an example, just look at property insurance in Florida after a hurricane.

The shops want to sell more classes, trips, and gear, the agencies want to sell more certifications, the resorts want more tourists paying $29 for a cardboard steak, the liveaboards want more people clogging their heads and bazooka barfing their bologna sandwiches everywhere.

The real crisis is a crisis of expectations of what some of you believe this industry should be. It is a money churn designed over decades to redistribute money. Tech diving has a slightly different paradigm.Tech divers tend to more aware of what they are getting into. At the end of the discussion, there are 11 billion reasons for things to keep going as they are.

 

[berndo]

I have long envied the BSAC system and wished we had that here in the US. GUE is as close to a club atmosphere as I have found, and that is part of what I found appealing about GUE.

I don't know, man. GUE seems to be the exact opposite of the clubs. The clubs are run by volunteers that want to do something for the community so that younger people and people with less money can dive too. The instructors get expenses paid and do it as a hobby.
GUE system caters only the top end of of the market and tries to squeeze as much money out of people as they can. Just GUE.TV alone for a years cost twice as much as my club membership fee. And we have a boat, compressor, rental gear and a little club house 30 feet from the shore, they organize dive trips, etc.
I tend to think GUE is a net negative for the dive industry... they make diving less accessible for the general public. The clubs try to get more people into diving.

 

[Lorenzoid]

Understood, @berndo. If we had BSAC (we could call it ASAC here) then maybe GUE would be less appealing to me.

 

[VikingDives]

I have long envied the BSAC system and wished we had that here in the US. GUE is as close to a club atmosphere as I have found, and that is part of what I found appealing about GUE.

I wonder if anyone has tried to open a BSAC club in the US. It seems possible from a glance at their website. Maybe that's a question for a new thread... though they offer member instructors insurance that covers other agency training activity. It might be worth it just for that (though it's not clear to me that they cover dive training in the US).