Wonder no more. The answer is "absolutely". Many people simply WANT to buy a certification card and they are willing to put their life at risk for saving a little money and a little time.
The most successful shop around in our area offers..... let's call them "accelerated" courses. They do the whole OW course in 3 pool sessions of 90 minutes of which I personally witnessed that about 1/3 (on the whole) to 1/2 (in the first pool session) is not used. (ie. under 3 hours submerged). Particularly the first session can safely be described as chaotic.
Students are not taught neutrally buoyant, they are taught in large groups and (again, from personal experience) sometimes *literally* dragged through exercises so it could be ticked off without even understanding what it was they were supposed to be learning (this depends, of course on the instructor doing it). At one point they hired two instructors from Thailand who were accustomed to teaching "resort courses" so the staff could learn efficiency tricks from them. One of those instructors told me straight up that even working in a resort in Thailand he had never seen OW done at such a high tempo before.
Needless to say their first OW day can also be described as chaotic. Personally I find the transition from the pool to OW in our conditions a challenge with max 4 students who are well trained in confined. With 10 poorly prepared students and 5 staff in the water their approach means, frankly, that the lead instructor can't even see everybody, let alone be in control of the situation as 1/2 of students are energetically plowing through the bottom.
For full disclosure I tried teaching this course twice. After the first attempt I was shocked and dismayed at the result of the pool sessions and declined to participate in the OW part. I said not a single one was ready and the lead instructor declared that they were ALL ready..... All of those students were certified. Not a single one of them could dive. During the second attempt I threw in the towel after the first pool session and walked away. I had a big fight with the lead instructor on the street outside the shop after we came back from the pool because he laid into me about being too slow and doing things (like swimming) that were unnecessary and not dictated by standards. As an instructor I was (and still am) convinced that it's not a question of whether or not this approach will lead to a serious accident but when.... The discussion escalated and I walked away without even debriefing his students. He said that it wasn't fair to do that so I said I would debrief them but that my debriefing would consist of telling them that they needed to a walk away if they wanted to live or to ask for their money back. At that point he got really angry and I just took my stuff and went home. I haven't spoken to him since that day, which is unusual for me because I usually try to resolve conflicts like this within a day or two of it happening. This time was one of the few times in my life that I just let that ride and burned a bridge.
Nevertheless they persist. The owner of the shop is a VERY good entrepreneur by any standard. He knows his stuff and has really hit a chord with potential customers because this course sells -- as bad as it sounds when I describe it from an instructor's perspective -- like pancakes. People WANT to just "get er done" and are even willing to pay MORE money (per hour) for this kind of training than they do for qualitatively much better training.
To give you an idea of how bad this has become....where I work now the amount of time in confined is a minimum of about 6 1/2 hours submerged (as opposed to their 3+) with extra pool sessions costing €20 as opposed to their €50. We do 5x 2 hour theory sessions with students even though they take e-learning..... They do only the tests even though students do self-study (not even e-learning as far as I know). Our group sizes are capped at 4 with an instructor and a DM present at all times whereas they normally run courses with 10 students and a couple of instructors (in the pool) and add some DM's in the OW part. Our course costs €50 more but takes 2 weeks longer to complete. The difference in quality is substantial but because it takes 2 weeks extra to complete, the shop I'm describing certifies +/- 500 OW divers per year and we do about 80 (not 100% sure of the numbers anymore).....for almost the same price but at the cost of two weeks of extra effort.
And THAT is how customers look at this. For €50 and two evenings of their life diving in a pool they will gladly -- and in large numbers -- put their lives on the line..... I don't get it and to be frank at this point, as an instructor, I'm not willing to give up any more ground in this discussion. I've given up too much already. As soon as I have finished training my daughter I may give up instructing altogether.
R..
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