I've also heard this... I have no idea if it's BS or not, but my LDS have warned me against doing IDC over there, and to a lesser extent DM.
they are adamant that if i did IDC there I'd need to take a few classes with the training manager supervising (unpaid) before i would be let loose with students (and be paid)
also some other instructors I've talked to say that the level of SE asian certified instructors are quite poor.
while i take what the dive store says with a small grain of salt as they're not getting my $$ if i go to Thailand to get certified i would suspect things are a little more lax over there.
Yeah. Your LDS contact is misinformed. If anything, I'd distrust DM training more than I'd distrust IDC preparation. Assuming you are referring to PADI instructor courses, the IDC is no more "lax" over here in SE Asia than anywhere else on the planet. The Instructor Examinations are all externally assessed, the examiners are all from other places (IDC staff cannot participate in administering the IE at all), so the course itself has to prepare the candidates to the prevailing worldwide standard or they will fail the exams--both written and practical. My examiner was from PADI HQ in California. (SSI follows an external assessment scheme much like PADI's, but NAUI has a different system; however, NAUI isn't a major player here.)
DM certifications with most agencies depend entirely on the instructor conducting the course, given that the instructor is the same person who does the assessments. I've seen DMs from the Americas and Australia and Europe and Asia and from all agencies (PADI, SSI, CMAS, BSAC, etc.) who were poorly prepared and I've seen ones from all of those regions/agencies who were well-prepared. My own DM students are more than ready to go into the IDC and often end up tutoring their classmates if they decide to go on to the IDC relatively soon after their DM training. (When there's a significant time between their DM training and their IDC, they may forget some information or get rusty in some of their demonstration-quality skills if they don't work in diving or don't regularly use the information they learned for their DM qualification.)
Having said that, it seems reasonable to me that any employer would want a demonstration of a potential instructor's capabilities before hiring him/her permanently. But I don't think any "classes" are in order at all.
As for Koh Tao, well, it's cheap. That much can be said for it. And it's definitely a fun island for 20-somethings. They do have a reputation for hustling Open Water students through their courses in large groups as quickly as they can manage, so if you are doing an internship there as an OWSI, you may find you are part of a "factory" approach to scuba instruction. Not all schools do this, but it's hard not to when the prices are so low that in order to compete at the same price point you have to pack as many students as possible into the courses and to cut costs in whatever way possible (for example by limiting the confined water training to three hours total so that the whole course can be completed in three days).
This doesn't appeal to me personally as an instructor, but for those new instructors wanting to rack up certification numbers fast, that's one way to do it (an instructor can become a Master Scuba Diver Trainer having taught as few as two Open Water courses along with only a few Discover Scuba Diving experiences). Personally, I prefer quality over quantity in my own teaching, which is why I focus on private instruction or very small groups (usually only two students who will be actual dive buddies on completion of the course--couples or family members or close friends). Naturally that kind of individualized training costs more than the mass production-style of instruction so common on Tao.
The diving from Koh Tao is without a doubt inferior to what is available on the other side of the country, in the Andaman Sea. It all depends on what your primary parameters are. Generally better diving and smaller groups = West (Phuket) side; Generally cheaper courses and huge numbers of student divers = East (Tao) side.
