What would your ideal training agency look like?

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This thread is getting seriously interesting. I'd like to think some people at PADI, BSAC, CMAS et al are following this, because there's some very sensible suggestions and opinions flowing here.

Our limiting factor is instructors. Getting people able to teach and willing to waste valuable diving holding the hand of some trainee is a problem.

Yep. It's difficult to ask people to give up a glorious day out on the Manacles or something to sit on the bottom of the municipal pool with a newbie. It can always be "sold" as way to build good instructor experience and develop yourself down that path, or appealing to peoples passion for their club, but yep... it's a difficult one.

This reminds me of a couple of things that an ideal agency would do to do with technological. First is to embrace e-learning and telepresence, next is to treat tables like double entry book keeping in paper ledgers.

I have no idea how ledgers work (guessing it's like how dive tables work?) but totally agree with the need to reduce theroy instructor workload. I work in IT, so the lack of E-learning resources with BSAC just screams out at me for modernisation. Despite this, I'm quite old fashioned myself and *like* having the books, so I wouldn't advocate for removing printed material entirely, but rather that it should be integrated with the digital platform for presenting some of the lectures, for self-testing, revision, formal assessment, with the book as a strong reference base that is easy to come back to as you progress. As you say, hopefully this could make it more appealing for commercial outdits to offer BSAC courses, and also hopefully make OD instruction more apealing to club instructors, if they didn't have to spent so much time doing dry theory.

There's no reason why we couldn't have a regional instructor do an intereactive livestream for some of the theroy material for, say, all the clubs in their region. This wouldn't be technologically difficult - there's cloud packages for this, so instructors and students could simply do it through a web portal on their own devices. This could be used for workshops as well, which would be a nice perk for retaining existing members.

BSAC have been making fairly big changes to their IT platforms of late though, so hopefully something like this isn't beyond the realms of possibility, provided they can keep up the momentum.

Yet with all that tryign to get people moved on through training (remember we can diver year round wind permitting.) We had a surplus of instructors but getting them to give up their time was near impossible. Indeed getting people to take their turn with compressor, and bar duty, assisting with boat maintenance and havign people prepared to tow was a constant challenge. It always came down to a few. SD and DL took far too long for most people (nepotism was alive and well though)

By 2018 after a series of unconnected events the club was on its knees and now has approx 10 diving members and has depleted all its reserves, with one of the biggest reasons being internal politics where lots of people (myself included) decided it was no longer fun nor enjoyable and go commercial, where diving is fun, and easy (no more washing boats) and you're no longer facing the constant bickering and backbiting on boats each week.

*nods* Yep the club culture can be great.... or absolutely toxic. When the rot starts to set in, you get those few who pitch in to do everything then you just get resentment and burn-out ("What's the point? No one else gives a ****"). One part of the basic induction really should be on ethos. "This is a club. We all volunteer because we love the sport. The club is only what you make of it, so get involved!"

Part of the reason picking up PADI AOW is attractive is they have a bit of plastic that says they are good to 30m, so the hand holding impact is not on the whole boat. (Do keep copies for the coroner though, just in case).

I know it's dark but this literally made me laugh out loud. That was kind of on my mind when I wanted to get back in the water and was debating doing PADI OW... Always have a good Q card photo, it might be on the DAN website one day, right along with "Jasmin is believed to have stupided herself to death in ideal conditions at 6 metres, having just got her newest Underwater Unicorn Hunting speciality" (For the record, I failed.)

Really though you want enthusiastic people, telling them to come back later is telling them to get lost. In the club environment it is important to keep the momentum with new people, get them involved and maybe doing instruction, being on the committee, running dives etc. They might not be as good at it as the old hands but they will only get that way by doing it.

Absolutely. I got involved on the committee from the get-go. Partially to give something back, partially to get experience and insight, and partially because it's fun and a chance see more of the people I'm diving with and build friendships. Again, make the club diving ethos part of the basic training so people "get" how it works, particularly if they're coming in from a commercial organisation - you can't just rock up to the boat and expect everything to be done for you.
 
I concur in some ways but here is an alternative view

OW/OWD is generally someone's first introduction to Scuba diving. While we agree that its also where the foundation of the core skills are embedded, until people have competed the course they don't actually know whether they're going to enjoy diving. In which case a long convoluted certification process isn't for them

Perhaps OW/OWD is treated as a provisional licence needing further experience dives and post cert modules to be completed to make it a full OW/OWD. Before moving on to more in depth tiers. (SD in BSSAC world is a great cert and where lots of people are satisfied to remain

Also a great many people are time limited, in that they only dive warm water and on vacation, so again really long courses don't suit them

All they want to do is see pretty fishes - maybe one dive vacation every couple of years or so. Hence the market demanded the bite size course, while with good intent has morphed into something less than ideal

Perhaps OW/OW should be a course limited to certain dive centres (those who can carry out instructor courses) Con ed courses can be done by all, but you limit those who can teach OW which in turn allows easier monitoring and auditing of teaching standards

Maybe a shiny new instructor has to earn an additional qualification to teach OW?

For PADI this would totally make sense. For this, more clearly differentiting OW (keeping it simple as poss) while making AOW more SD-alike would be sensible, esp. since AOW (from what I understand) is a weak link in the PADI system (it doesn't equate to BSAC SD or CMAS 2*). For BSAC, it's probably a bit academic since (present company excepted!) no one ever does a BSAC club dive to experience warm water and colourful tropical fish... unless it's at the aquarium :p
 
....no one ever does a BSAC club dive to experience warm water and colourful tropical fish... unless it's at the aquarium :p

All my local oppressive cousins have been celebrating the resumption of flights from Blighty to Egypt. Time to stock up on sunscreen.
 
Perhaps OW/OWD is treated as a provisional licence needing further experience dives and post cert modules to be completed to make it a full OW/OWD. Before moving on to more in depth tiers. (SD in BSSAC world is a great cert and where lots of people are satisfied to remain

People, especially on here, get quite offended when you tell them OW (or indeed OD) is not a sufficient qualification for proper diving.

All they want to do is see pretty fishes - maybe one dive vacation every couple of years or so. Hence the market demanded the bite size course, while with good intent has morphed into something less than ideal

But those people are not generally dying, so what is the problem?

Perhaps OW/OW should be a course limited to certain dive centres (those who can carry out instructor courses) Con ed courses can be done by all, but you limit those who can teach OW which in turn allows easier monitoring and auditing of teaching standards

Follow the money. Who makes more money by monitoring and auditing? Are they injuring people at a high enough rate to scare insurance companies? The trouble is that a badly trained diver is generally quite separated from the company/person doing the instruction. How often is an injury traced back to whoever trained the injured person? A fuss is made when someone dies on a course, but later?

Maybe the ploy needs to be like going after oil companies for global warming. My reef has been trashed by rubbish divers, you train 80% of divers so time for compensation...
 
GUE………...

I find it hard to believe that you find GUE to be the perfect agency. I don’t feel like any agency is perfect. They all have flaws in one form or another.

As an example, the cost to take a GUE course for a new diver is ridiculous and rather than making diving inclusive, it does the opposite.

Somewhere between PADI and GUE is an ideal agency that ticks all the boxes.

I love RAID but I dislike that an instructor has to be associated with a dive center. It takes away the ability to be a truly independent instructor. Now it is supposed to provide checks and balances as it relates to adherence to standards. An instructor signs off that the student did the skills. The student also signs that all skills were accomplished. Then the dive center has to check boxes saying the standards were followed and they certify the diver.

In theory it is great but in reality, if you only have one RAID center near you and you happen to not get along with them, you are pretty much up the creek minus the paddle.
 
I find it hard to believe that you find GUE to be the perfect agency. I don’t feel like any agency is perfect. They all have flaws in one form or another.

As an example, the cost to take a GUE course for a new diver is ridiculous and rather than making diving inclusive, it does the opposite.

Somewhere between PADI and GUE is an ideal agency that ticks all the boxes.

I love RAID but I dislike that an instructor has to be associated with a dive center. It takes away the ability to be a truly independent instructor. Now it is supposed to provide checks and balances as it relates to adherence to standards. An instructor signs off that the student did the skills. The student also signs that all skills were accomplished. Then the dive center has to check boxes saying the standards were followed and they certify the diver.

In theory it is great but in reality, if you only have one RAID center near you and you happen to not get along with them, you are pretty much up the creek minus the paddle.

Not to mention that the shop wasn't in the water with the instructor and student, so they're actually signing off on something that they didn't see. They've signed off on faith only. Is there some insurance reasoning for this or what?
 
Not to mention that the shop wasn't in the water with the instructor and student, so they're actually signing off on something that they didn't see. They've signed off on faith only. Is there some insurance reasoning for this or what?


I am not a RAID instructor or dive center so I could be wrong about what the DC needs ti check off to issue the cert. I do know what the student and instructors need to tick off though.

No idea of why they do it other than there is at least one other agency that makes an instructor tied to a center who then does the final cert check off.
 
Somewhere between PADI and GUE is an ideal agency that ticks all the boxes

The further this discussion goes, the more it seems to prove that the current system does work (for the most part)

But those people are not generally dying, so what is the problem?

It's a valid point. For the most part training is fit for purpose. In that it meets the of divers (for the most part)

As Ken rightly pointed out, the PADI/SSI et al OW cert meets the needs of the average diver, who dives only occasionally on vacation.

In effect its the equivalent to a hack and bash golfer, content with renting gear, playing a 9 hole Par 3 then going to the pub afterwards.

Yes the "Scuba police" might look down on these people, but they're being introduced to the sport and providing much needed revenue.

The commercial organisations model falls apart as people rise up through the tiers

We can agree that AoW is badly names, and in reality noting more than experience dives under the guidance of an instruct (similar to the Post OWD qualification experience dives in BSAC. As diver rise further through the tiers the system fails them further, because they are convinced that they are better divers because they gain say Rescue. Whereas in reality their core skills aren't being improved and refined.

So in my view the commercial model could improve it's main stream Con Ed courses, as well as adding additional tiers so that divers can if they chose, have qualification road map to aspire toward without needing to "Go Pro"

I personally wold re Model AoW - possibly more inline with Sports diver, perhaps without the Deco aspect I'd prefer some improvement in skills and abilities for 30m diving - however as people progress upwards then I'd insist on basic deco training (lose deep and replace it with a Tec 40 style course)

Meanwhile there are other courses and agencies that offer alternatives (RAID, GUE) etc, for those with the desire, time and money) to take a longer more in depth course for the outset.

However I'd expect the mainstream agencies higher certs to converge towards or equal the GUE/RAID skill standards as the diver progresses farther up the tiers
 
The further this discussion goes, the more it seems to prove that the current system does work (for the most part)



It's a valid point. For the most part training is fit for purpose. In that it meets the of divers (for the most part)

As Ken rightly pointed out, the PADI/SSI et al OW cert meets the needs of the average diver, who dives only occasionally on vacation.

In effect its the equivalent to a hack and bash golfer, content with renting gear, playing a 9 hole Par 3 then going to the pub afterwards.

Yes the "Scuba police" might look down on these people, but they're being introduced to the sport and providing much needed revenue.

The commercial organisations model falls apart as people rise up through the tiers

We can agree that AoW is badly names, and in reality noting more than experience dives under the guidance of an instruct (similar to the Post OWD qualification experience dives in BSAC. As diver rise further through the tiers the system fails them further, because they are convinced that they are better divers because they gain say Rescue. Whereas in reality their core skills aren't being improved and refined.

So in my view the commercial model could improve it's main stream Con Ed courses, as well as adding additional tiers so that divers can if they chose, have qualification road map to aspire toward without needing to "Go Pro"

I personally wold re Model AoW - possibly more inline with Sports diver, perhaps without the Deco aspect I'd prefer some improvement in skills and abilities for 30m diving - however as people progress upwards then I'd insist on basic deco training (lose deep and replace it with a Tec 40 style course)

Meanwhile there are other courses and agencies that offer alternatives (RAID, GUE) etc, for those with the desire, time and money) to take a longer more in depth course for the outset.

However I'd expect the mainstream agencies higher certs to converge towards or equal the GUE/RAID skill standards as the diver progresses farther up the tiers

I thought that AOW's name had been changed from Advanced to Adventures?

Back in the day, I was certified to 130', nowadays it's only 100', is that correct?
 
I thought that AOW's name had been changed from Advanced to Adventures?

Back in the day, I was certified to 130', nowadays it's only 100', is that correct?

AoW is still current and yes max depth IN TRAINING is 30m 100' (the same as OW is Max Depth in training 18m/60'

Adventure diver is a subset, requiring only 3 adventure dives

By Contrast BSAC is OWD 20m For sports diver post certification you then make 3 depth progression dives 25, 30 & 35m So my interpretation (not a BSAC instructor just ex Student, is that Cert doesn't automatically give you depth progression

Certainly in the Dive leader section (DM) it clearly says Optional Post Qual dives to 40m, 45 & 50m only conducted after award of certification

@KenGordon should clarify
 
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