We all know PADI has a good strangle hold on the intro-to-diving world, i guess part of the big problem with that is their PR and to give any new "agency" a chance they have to compete with that. Those who arent divers see only the time and price limits, IF you could somehow show them that more time/experience/instruction is worth spending more money, then those who are intelligent/forward thinking/desiring to do more than resort dive would take that option to get the most out of their instruction. I know i felt cheated at the end of the training i did particularly when i read about other instructors going beyond the minimum and teaching useful things that will aid a diver and not just the barely staying alive skills that our couple of days of diving did.
It would be wonderful to have an "agency" which was commited to a better way of diving, but how do you inform the public that it is better?? I think that the structure of such a course should take you from the basic stuff in skin diving up to scuba and then improve on that. I dont think the course should include more "advanced" stuff like nitrox or anything beyond skills neccessary for the divers to be able to dive safely (for themselves, the environment and the other divers) - good buoyancy, trim, and anti-silting kicks being very useful! The courses available most places seem to either be a weekend/two weeks with a day or so pool time and 4/5 OW dives, or the same amount of class/pool/OW time spread over a few more weeks (judging from what i have heard, the total hours are approx the same). A better course would spend more time in each section, teaching, pool and OW (possibly even a few more dives - 6?) to really get the student aclimated to diving and able to practice and be critiqued by their instructor.
Maybe also the course would cost what it is worth rather than be a cost leader in anticipation of equipment sales (i know some instructors arent affiliated to a LDS - like GDI) - then maybe we could follow the example of a lawyer's advert around here about nursing home abuse (not quite diving, but stay with me), that the staff should be paid a proper wage, nanny cameras should used and they wont have to worry about being sued by disgruntled families. The analogy is that the instructors are paid better (by LDS), so they might want to teach better - particularly if they are given incentive by LDS, cameras could be used to critique diving style - this is very useful in other sports, why not diving?, and of course the disgruntled students who realised they werent being taught properly (assuming they are informed of this), would no longer be disgruntled and would give repeat business to them, rather than moving off like i have done from my OW LDS!
Well this is all very ideal, but how do you make it work and tell the public that you offer a course that is better than joe down the road who is offering the PADI weekend course for $99??
