The goals of the course and the specific topics covered, as well as the skills you should be able to perform to pass the course, are quite clearly spelled out on the GUE website (
here).
The two GUE instructors with whom I have had the good fortune to work are two of the three best scuba instructors I've seen. And I think every single report of a GUE class I've read has praised the instructor. It's my suspicion that the instructor training that GUE does really works on teaching skills -- either that, or they're just succeeding in recruiting people with exceptional teaching talent to begin with.
Why is the failure rate high? Because the standards are high, and because most of us come into the class so far from meeting them that there is little hope that we can be brought up to standards in three days. This, I think, is the reason for the provisional pass. The class introduces you to the skills and ideas, but you have to go off on your own and work to truly MASTER them. You don't pass until you meet the standard, period. Personally, I LIKE that, even though it took me every bit of the six allowed months (plus a fudge factor) to reach standards. But when I passed the checkout dive, I knew I had accomplished something.
As far as Fundies vs. full cave, remember that Fundies is FUNDAMENTALS. A full cave diver should have skills and understanding far beyond Fundies. But I read all the time about people taking cavern (look at creamofwheat's recent report, for example) and they spend a good part of their time on buoyancy, trim, and propulsion techniques. If you've been through Fundies, you already HAVE that, and the class can focus on the cave-specific material instead.
I do think it must be very hard to decide you LIKE what DIR teaches, and go home to an area where you have nobody like you with whom to work. (I feel for dherbman.) But you still won't have lost anything by learning the academic material or the skills. And who knows -- you can be an ambassador and lead by example!
