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Ot is incredible how much things changed over years...
My OW course was in 1975. It was 6 months long.
The class was initially of 25 students, but we did lose most of them during the course. At the final exam we were 9. Only 5 were certified. That is 20% of the initial number.
I was told it was a very good result, as in some previous years only 10-15% of the students did pass...
The reason for leaving the course was, for most students, their insufficient free body - free diving fitness, in the first part of the course, and their incapability of getting full control of breathing, body motion and brains state in the second half of the course, when the training switched from free diving to the Oxygen CC rebreather (ARO).
At the exam, instead, most failures were due to the theoretical exam: students did not study properly the physics, physiology and the deco theory and tables, so they had already failed before it was time to go in water.
No one was rejected during the exercises in the pool or at the exam dive in the sea.

Of the people lost during course or at the exam, only 1/3 managed to get certified in the following years.
Among them it was my wife (my girlfriend, at the time), who did get the cert only the second year, but later managed to become a very skilled instructor.
A course with an exam where no one is rejected is not a serious course, in my opinion.
In 1975 getting a CMAS degree was probably too much selective, but giving it easily to everyone makes no good to our sport.
 
I’ve seen instructors issue several PADI Scuba diver certs instead of Open Water Diver.

The last one was trying to get certified ASAP just before a tropical holiday, pre-Covid. He could do all the skills but just totally depended on the instructor or DM during the dive.

At one point got twisted around and was lying on the bottom at 5m on his back just looking up for help to get flipped over and neutrally buoyant again. “And that was the exact moment I decided he was only getting a Scuba diver card” was the quote from the instructor.
 
That's 100% on the dive op for not asking or having the friend fill out a medical form. The due diligence is on them not you. You didn't know, and it was just a discover dive, which is MEANT to find out if diving is right for a person and should be very carefully monitored. They sound nasty for holding that against you. Ridiculous.

:confused: Did your friend fail to disclose the asthma or did they not even have him complete a medical disclosure form?

Dive op owner was a real jerk, friend was too naive to understand what they were getting into. Perfect storm.
 
I teach in a club based system where a student is normally taught by multiple instructors. In fact its unusual for one instructor to take a student through all the lessons. Only Lead Instructors of BSAC Branches (clubs) or BSAC Centres (commercial dive operators) are authorised to sign-off BSAC diving qualifications. Over the years I’ve declined to sign-off one individual; that was for their overall risk attitude to diving.

There are numerous individuals I've come across whom didn’t adequately demonstrate competence of diving skills therefore didn’t get all the lessons signed-off to gain a diving qualification. I've suggested to a few that they could try a different leisure activity.
 
perhaps we need more defined standards that spell out exactly what constitutes a pass / fail ?
 
Early in my career as a DM I was assisting OW and had a student panic at the surface before dive one. Upon getting them back to shore I discovered he had recently had heart surgery. Answered no to all the medical questions. Once the instructor returned and became aware he was removed from further training.
That was the first.
Over the course of many years as the instructor there have been a number.
One couldn’t pass the swim test and over the course of weeks still couldn’t.
One gentleman didn’t have the mental ability to remember simple instructions.
One young man had autism that was more severe than his parents eluded to and put his buddy in danger more than I was willing to allow. He had no family that was certified.
One student decided to dive the day before OW with one of his friends and was stupid enough to put a video on FB.
There have been many that struggled with certain skills and wished to not continue. I don’t count those as fails but deep within they knew they were doing it for the wrong reasons.
 
They basically do not complete the course. Either by freaking out and not doing all four dives, or by an instructor not signing off a skill as complete.... and then the student walks away not having the time, or desire to continue.

The word fail tends to stay in the same circles with lots of judgement. Those people need to get over themselves.
 
The shop where I certified (NAUI) has a policy that students can re-take the class as many times as necessary until they pass for no extra charge. Of course you have to pay for the dives since that involves paying a boat or park or something. Everything else is provided by the shop. Sometimes a failing student will do it, sometimes they won't. There was a mother and daughter in my class of six who didn't pass. I recall hearing that they didn't come back for another try.

Although I didn't fail the class outright, I had to try three times to complete the 60' underwater swim on one breath. After try two, I hired a swim instructor who fixed me up in about 10 minutes. After the swim class, I wouldn't call the swim easy but I can do it every time I try.
 
Don't stop at OW, I'm a newb, but I dove with "DiveMasters" who finned up the bottom so bad you couldn't see the wreck. I at least know better than that.........I was least qualified at only AOW and least number of dives, but I knew enough to stay off the bottom.
 
In my 4 seasons of assisting there weren't many who "failed". I can off hand think of one guy who literally couldn't finish one pool lap without panicking and sinking. Another was a girl who just struggled with everything, and a third who depended on a buddy for help all the time (we told the buddy to not do this of course). In observing the swim test many times, I would have nixed a few students, but as it says, you can even do the dog paddle and pass. I won't get into my old rant about swim tests and what they should be about.
But you have to define "failed". More than once we had students join our group from a previous course due to this reason or that. One guy I was assigned to help had a problem with everything imaginable and of course also didn't like our instructor. He probably had all those problems in the course he didn't finish. Do we count these people as "failed"? They did fail to complete the original course they signed up for.
 

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