Yeah, because BSAC/CMAS standards are not low enough for Tao style OWD and instructor training. PADI truly is the McDonalds of the dive industry... a major cooperation with a high focus on marketing only that PADIs sales people pay for their own training while making less money.
Padi Fees
- Thread starter ljpm
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I am able to teach independently, and charge as much as I want.
As much as I move around, I know that it is not always practical to be affiliated with a shop. This made PADI a good fit for me.
Like anything else in life, if you want higher standard courses, seek them out and be willing to pay for it.
You can find this with any agency, including PADI.
If an instructor wants to set up to teach short courses for very little money, that's on them and not the agency.
There's an ass for every seat..........low standard (fast/cheap) providers and people looking for the cheapest deal will always find each other.
That has nothing to do with the agency.
Most places I've traveled to were comprised of PADI shops.
If I want to dive, and take some boat trips out to different dive sites, it is often a PADI affiliated shop that I'm going to find.
If they have made the business investment to establish a shop, and the boats that go along with it, then good for them.
That's where I'll spend my money, because I want to go diving.
BSAC sounds like a great setup. It would be great to have that sort of club setup locally. But I don't know how common of an arrangement that is around the world; I've never seen it while traveling.
If I'm traveling and looking to dive, I'm more than happy to find a (BSAC/SSI/SDI/PADI/CMAS/RAID/insert agency name here) shop and go diving from their boat.
Most often I have found that shops and their boat operations are affiliated with PADI, so those are the shops I'm going to spend my money with if I want to get a couple of boat dives in while I'm on a trip somewhere.
As much as I move around, I know that it is not always practical to be affiliated with a shop. This made PADI a good fit for me.
Like anything else in life, if you want higher standard courses, seek them out and be willing to pay for it.
You can find this with any agency, including PADI.
If an instructor wants to set up to teach short courses for very little money, that's on them and not the agency.
There's an ass for every seat..........low standard (fast/cheap) providers and people looking for the cheapest deal will always find each other.
That has nothing to do with the agency.
Most places I've traveled to were comprised of PADI shops.
If I want to dive, and take some boat trips out to different dive sites, it is often a PADI affiliated shop that I'm going to find.
If they have made the business investment to establish a shop, and the boats that go along with it, then good for them.
That's where I'll spend my money, because I want to go diving.
BSAC sounds like a great setup. It would be great to have that sort of club setup locally. But I don't know how common of an arrangement that is around the world; I've never seen it while traveling.
If I'm traveling and looking to dive, I'm more than happy to find a (BSAC/SSI/SDI/PADI/CMAS/RAID/insert agency name here) shop and go diving from their boat.
Most often I have found that shops and their boat operations are affiliated with PADI, so those are the shops I'm going to spend my money with if I want to get a couple of boat dives in while I'm on a trip somewhere.
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DevonDiver
N/A
I've worked in Thailand and that's what I experienced also.
That said, the centers are merely responding to customer demand. The saturation of dive centers promotes excessive competition.
People literally walk door-to-door comparing prices and looking for the cheapest deal. There's no thought or consideration about quality whatsoever.
The only way that most dive centers there can stay competitive is to cut costs. That means running the shortest courses possible - and it's achieved by lowering the assessment standards on skills, so everyone passes in the shortest timescale.
Its an entirely consumer-driven process.
It happens because consumers believe they are purchasing a card... a license. Same license, different prices - so why not pick the cheapest?
Few students consider that they're supposed to be buying training, and the card is only a proof of that training.
We see evidence of this consumer attitude continually, even here on Scubaboard.
People compare which card let's them go deeper. People talk about needing this, or that, card to permit this, or that, activity underwater . . .
Even when people generalise about agencies. . . like the PADI bashers . . they're just contributing to flawed perceptions that all training is equal in outcome and there's no point shopping intelligently for quality instruction.
If training outcomes are considered equal . . . the logic dictates to shop on price.
So. . . a self-fulfilling prophesy occurs..
Assume all training is bad, so focus on price, assume you get little for your money... economise... undertake a 'necessary evil' to get the 'license' you need.. choose a cheap course. . . then complain to everyone that your training was bad.
Its utterly laughable . . .
Your profile indicates Japan, have you seen BSAC Japan?
I have never heard of them here in Japan.
Been there for the best part of 30 years. There is also BSAC Korea and BSAC Thailand
Mustard Dave
Contributor
I am not aware of BSAC publishing manuals in those languages (Edward seems to know quite a but about BSAC's overseas operations though), but a quick Google search reveals CMAS have a presence in the respective countries.
If PADI did not exist, would diving in these parts of the world cease? I doubt it. If we can set up a successful agency in a country with crap weather, poor vis, and freezing water, I'm sure it can be managed in other parts of the world.
Regarding your last paragraph, the winter has nothing to do with it. Our pool sessions take place on Thursday evenings all year round. I also do not see how using a pool makes divers better. A pool is a facility for introducing novices to critical skills without being distracted by bad water conditions. The real learning starts when you dive in the conditions you plan to be diving in. The opportunities for diving aren't as good over the winter as the weather makes getting in the sea harder. Diving still continues, but there's more chance it will be in a quarry rather than in the sea. As you rightly say, there are good and bad instructors in all agencies, but this is nothing to do with the weather.
On a general note though, to the forum in general rather than a response to this post: I do not have any particular beef with PADI training. I do have a few criticisms, but at the same time, I have the same of BSAC. The two issues I have with them as an organisation is I do not think they do enough for their members interests (a member meaning a 'PADI Pro', who pays an annual subscription), and they seem to be too money-driven. As I have said, an agency does not need to make a profit. It needs revenue, but that is not the same thing. All agencies make money, but the more benevolent ones that only represent divers do not have shareholders to think of.
As I said earlier, I don't think anybody here is looking for free certs. On your first point, I do not know any shop that advertises the fact that staff work without pay, but surely we all know it happens? A dive shop we use in a particular EU country pays its instructors less than the minimum wage. In addition, there are an equal number of DMs working there, who do not make a penny. The owner rewards them by putting them through the IDC at the end of the season, but the cost to him for doing this is a fraction of what he would pay if he gave them a legitimate wage.
On your second point, I know loads of instructors like that. The PADI school / club I used to dive with (and still do informally) has no full time employees other than the manager. The instructors are all well-off professional types who do the teaching as a weekend hobby; the money they make just about covers their costs.
My new BSAC club does not pay instructors a penny. Also there are coaches for amateur sports teams worldwide that give their time up for free. The dive community benefits from more divers; the more people we encourage into our club, the more money we have. The more money we have, the more we can spend on our facilities. More divers also means a better chance of filling spaces on a charter, more chance of finding buddies, and grows the social side.
I cannot see why (or even could) a non-profit organisation would look to generate a profit. As I said, there is a difference between revenue and profit. My club does not make a profit, but we are always looking to bring in more money. We do this by running social activities, attracting more members, running raffles etc. We do not do this by ripping off divers who need to replace a bit of plastic.
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I have worked for shops which pay less than minimum wage in some cases, and I have earned less than minimum wage working for them. That does not mean I like it.
In 1984, George Orwell introduced the term doublethink--the ability to hold two contradictory beliefs at the same time. Certain posters in this thread (and many others like it) seem to be displaying this remarkable mental ability as they simultaneously believe...
- PADI professionals are greedy money grubbers looking to take all your money at every turn in order to enrich themselves.
- PADI professionals work for free or less than minimum wage while they are greedily stealing all your cash.
Mustard Dave
Contributor
To me, that seems silly. You can easily incorporate multiple skills into a single dive. The other issue is I have joined BSAC as an experienced diver. I did PADI OW, AOW, RD, and the Nitrox and Deep Diver specialities. I did not do DM because I do not want to be a 'PADI Pro'. Instead, I chose to further my training by going down the techie route.
When a diver from another agency joins BSAC, they can continue to dive within the limits of their existing qualification, as you know. However, to organise activities, you need to be a Dive Leader. As I want to muck in with this sort of thing, I needed the DL ticket. Having CCR and mixed gas means nothing when crossing over though; I am only considered a PADI Rescue Diver / Sports Diver equivalent, as far as diver grade goes.
Our TO is a very experienced instructor, and is highly involved at national level; I'm sure he has the requisite expertise to deviate from the syllabus to accommodate an individual and still achieve the same result. He will know that there should be no technical diver that cannot handle a mid-water DSMB deployment, so I fail to see what he is going to teach me. All he needs (in my opinion) is to be satisfied that I meet the requirements of the course.
I have been trying to bring a few of my mates into our club; one of them I spoke to is a PADI trained mixed gas diver. His concern was that he would be made to jump through hoops to cross over. As well as being a competent diver, he is a GP, so he would be an asset to our club. I would like him to get the DL ticket too, but he would tell us to piss off if we made him do all that and over seven separate dives.
Nobody said PADI pros are greedy money grubbers, the PADI cooperation is, not the guys who are paying the fees.
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