The 2018 annual review of scuba training agencies around the world: volunteers requested.

[Roger Hobden]

In short, I can make up caricatures of the agencies I've encountered in 2018,

Hopefully, no one will want to look up this thread to read caricatures of agencies.

I suspect most users will be expecting to read even-handed comments written by thoughtful people.

 

[Roger Hobden]

So yes it is the instructor that counts not the agency.

I am pretty much convinced of that, but this thread is about agencies, not about instructors.

 

[CAPTAIN SINBAD]

I'll play:

PADI: still here, still big. Do you want fries with that?
SSI: No, we're not a PADI shop. Yes, we do dive courses.
RAID: Not just rebreathers, promise. Did you know we don't print books?
ACUC: Canadian eh? Sorry for the ice in your OW checkout dives.
NAUI: We might only have 50 instructors, but they've got 50 years experience each.
BSAC: Recreational depth, what's that?
NACD: Vote pizza!

In short, I can make up caricatures of the agencies I've encountered in 2018, but at the end of the day... Dive instruction is about people, not a product.

I've met wonderful and horrible instructors in every agency (many teach for multiple agencies) and my sample size is too small to make useful comparisons globally.

Cameron

Funny but so true!

 

[Wookie]

Hopefully, no one will want to look up this thread to read caricatures of agencies.

I suspect most users will be expecting to read even-handed comments written by thoughtful people.

That's funny. You're new here, aren't you.

 

[Roger Hobden]

That's funny. You're new here, aren't you.

I prefer to think of myself as an optimist.

 

[The Chairman]

If they belong to the RSTC, there's no real difference between them. They mandate the craptitude in Scuba diving. I have no respect for them.

 

[Roger Hobden]

If they belong to the RSTC, there's no real difference between them. They mandate the craptitude in Scuba diving. I have no respect for them.

Hmm ... OK, then ... Clear enough ...

I used to dive in the 1990s (so-called "advanced" level), and stopped completely for about 20 years.
I returned to dive quite recently, did a theoretical and practical "refresh" course with PADI and re-read their OW book in detail. I gradually realized that there seemed to be a few "missing chapters" in that manual compared to other scuba diving training books that I was reading during the same period. And then I found this website. And eventually decided to sign up to a GUE Fundamentals course next year.

Obviously, I was and still am quite ignorant about the relative complexity of the underlying politics of the international scuba diving world.

As a beginner diver returning to scuba diving after so many years, I am under the perception that new divers should be prepared better then they currently are to the challenges of the underwater environment.

Returning to the OP, if, according to you, the RSTC affiliated training agencies don't make the grade, which are the ones that do, aside from GUE ?

What about CMAS ?

 

[hroark2112]

I am pretty much convinced of that, but this thread is about agencies, not about instructors.

What you're missing is the fact that all the agencies teach basically the same theories and skills. A great instructor can make great divers, regardless of the agency they are certifying you under. A poor instructor will make crappy divers, no matter what letters are on the card they issue.

It really is more about the instructor. We can have a 100 page thread discussing how everyone alternately loves or hates Agency XXX or thinks Agency YYY is just the best, but in the end it isn't who prints the materials, it's who is in the classroom and in the water with the students.

 

[Roger Hobden]

What you're missing is the fact that all the agencies teach basically the same theories and skills. A great instructor can make great divers, regardless of the agency they are certifying you under. A poor instructor will make crappy divers, no matter what letters are on the card they issue.

It really is more about the instructor. We can have a 100 page thread discussing how everyone alternately loves or hates Agency XXX or thinks Agency YYY is just the best, but in the end it isn't who prints the materials, it's who is in the classroom and in the water with the students.

But, is it not possible that a few of those agencies may in fact have higher standards then others concerning the quality control of their instructors (contents and teaching methods) ?

It was to find this out that I had the idea of this thread in the first place.

OTOH, I understand that having 200,000 ScubaBoard users agree on one thing will probably be a herculean task ...

 

[Trace Malinowski]

You may want to check out I thread I started here: Agency Culture (Truth in Humor?)