Why waste money on training!?

[rhwestfall]

Well, kind of. They still did their own training then cert. What I'm talking about would be an agency that only tests then certifies for a fee. The fee would only cover the clerical costs and would be way less than what a current OW class costs, but the standards could be much higher to be able to pass since you would pay the fee to take the tests regardless whether you pass or fail. There would be no incentive for the tester to pass anybody because would be a neutral entity and they get paid no matter what.
The training could be obtained anywhere by anybody.
This would give people the freedom to learn from mentors in dive clubs etc. like it used to be. They could really hone their skills over the period of weeks or months if needed. Make the test harder than any regular cert agency class is now. Make the in water skills thorough and not just barely do it and hope they never have to do it again.
This would not replace PADI, NAUI, SSI, SDI, or any other agency, it would just be an alternative.
You do your homework, learn to dive, and go in to take the test for a fraction of the cost of sitting through a regular class, and you're a better diver too.
The only way it would replace the above agencies would be if operators and dive shops stopped recognizing run of the mill agency standards as acceptable.

The reason I'm seeing this as something that could work is because let's face it, none of the regular cert agencies are going to improve anything, it's only going to get worse. They need to make money and they've already screwed themselves.

There needs to be an alternative system that goes completely around this current CF of a dive industry that is recognized world wide, and uses an outside testing source to pass sport divers.

so, the college PE credit class I took whom the instructor was a staff member, teaching it as a credit class, who could (and did) fail individuals.... all for a $25 lab fee..... And, it was a full semester, three days a week with classroom and skills circuit in the pool?????

Well, with the exception that it cost tuition for a semester to do it......

 

[Redshift]

That would require legislation about the diving levels and minimum requirements. Would they legislate on something which is not mandatory? Would you like that instruction was mandatory? And that the Government controlled it? Which standards do you think they'd use? Although it could help to ensure that students could meet those standards with proficiency, it wouldn't help if the standards themselves were low.
And then you'd have to advertise this new certification all around the world for people to know what the hell it meant when divers went to other countries. And how that would relate to other agencies in case a diver wanted to do some training abroad, and how that training abroad would be acknowledged in the home country... they'd had to still do an exam even though they were already certified? It's a can of worms.
Some countries do require dive courses for diving and do have some regulations on approved levels, but they leave the rest to the agencies.

 

[DaleC]

I don't know, they seem to be able to coordinate driving licenses between countries and in N.A. courses aren't mandatory, only the license. We worry about government regulation but instead, currently, we have dive industry regulation wherein every mom and pop, charter and agency makes up their own arbitrary rules. The fiasco over old Al tank filling being a prime example. Why not a set of widely recognized skills for recdiving that you have to demonstrate to gain a certification; how you develop those skills is entirely up to the individual. Those with C cards already could be grandfathered in to avoid the issues of recertification.

I don't think the standards are necessarily low as they are. What I see are people not proficient at the skills being certified as having them because the instructor is also the examiner. If the instruction standard is low, the examination standard is low. There are no checks and balances. Splitting the two would actually raise standards I think because it would soon become obvious who was not capable of instructing. Good instructors wouldn't have to worry as they gained a reputation for seeing students succeed. If I had to take a test, and I knew this guys students passed, and that guys students failed, I'd go with the first guy, even if his price was a little higher. right now, all students pass, regardless of instructor, so the lowest price appears to be a benefit. The unwary assume because the cert is the same, the instruction must be the same.

Government interference wouldn't even need to be anymore than it is now. You need certification to gain shop air fills or dive off charters but if you have your own compressor or dive from shore or your own boat, who looks at your C card.

 

[rhwestfall]

what made a difference was when it was implemented by "Non-For-Profit" agencies. La County, YMCA, etc. Motives had nothing to do with shareholders. You won't be able to go back to that regrettably....

But there is no way you want to add a layer of government regulation into it... though the independent examination qualification would be awesome. Similar to defending a thesis, or the aforementioned drivers license. What we have now is the fox guarding the hen house, and the agencies sitting in the background wanting nothing but to hear the sound of ringing cash registers..

 

[Bob DBF]

I don't think the standards are necessarily low as they are. What I see are people not proficient at the skills being certified as having them because the instructor is also the examiner. If the instruction standard is low, the examination standard is low. There are no checks and balances. Splitting the two would actually raise standards I think because it would soon become obvious who was not capable of instructing.

You are on the right track, but subject the instructors to government scrutiny. In the poor instructors discussion the one point that is missed is that there is no quality control of the instruction to weed out the substandard instructor, the marketplace starving them does not work because the majority of instructors would starve if it was their only job. It seems, from some conversations I've had, that the scuba profession is mostly a tax doge which could be looked into as well.

There is no problem with the instructor training and certifying, if the instructor is professional and has integrity. Have a state or federal standards and licence with regular renewals and use the funds to run quality control checks and remove substandard professionals, since the agencies seem to have a problem with that. And if the Agency were fined for producing a substandard professional or continuing to allow him to teach, the problem should resolve itself in no time.



Bob
--------------------------
There are more ways than one to skin a cat, however the cat never likes it.

 

[DaleC]

I think the market place would even take care of the poor instructor issue without enforcement perse.

If student testing was done by someone other than the agency, the agency would be forced to police it's own instructors or risk being seen as a poor choice for instruction; just like there are good colleges and bad ones. The agency model could get back to selling instruction, not C cards and could be evaluated by the market place based on the quality of their product.

If that model were in place, non divers would know they were shopping for instruction that needed to get them through an independent test, no matter the gimmick or discount. The real measure would be how well previous students did with that agency. Now, non divers look for an agency to teach them how to dive but, because there is no external measure, most assume the education is equal. All/most of the students pass.

Post certification we all begin to see the differences but for the non diver that's asking a lot, considering the excellent marketing job some agencies do.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

This is all great stuff.

I see the problems with a governement agency regulating training, so I'm reversing my position.
People are right, the government can't even chew gum and walk at the same time. It would be another boondoggle.

I still believe in a separate agency that does a test only type of certification. They wouldn't do any instruction.
I'm looking at a way to certify the "home schooled" kids so to speak, to give people a different choice other than having to go through one of the ABC agencies as it is now and sit through their class.
This could open up the doors to people who may not have quality instruction available where they live if they happen to be in a remote part of the world, or just plain have crappy shops and instruction where they live.
If I was an operator I would absolutely have no problem with a diver that was self instructed or learned to dive with buddies or a private dive club then went to a test only agency and passed a rigorous pool swim, tread, written, and a bunch of thorough open water dives. And as an operator if I knew the test was better than anything offered now because anybody that couldn't pass any part of the test fluently would NOT pass, then it would give me even more peace of mind. I'd wish everyone on my boat or at my resort was like that.
There would be more incentive to maintain integrity with such an agency rather incentive to cheat people through since it would be a non-profit and not profit driven.

The agency could be a private, as long as it was recognized by the WRSTC I suppose. But then I don't know much about the WRSTC other than they supposedly set the industry standard. I'm not making any accusations or assumptions here but I have questions as to whether there are the possibilities that they are in bed with all the ABC agencies and there isn't a bunch of good old boy cronyism happening?
Where does DEMA fall into all this, or do they?
Is there any corruption to the point where the ABC agencies have enough pull with the WRSTC to discourage newcomers on the scene?
Or, is the WRSTC separatist enough that they maintain unwavering integrity and uphold the highest of uncorrupted standards no matter what?
And then the final question about the WRSTC, is it possible to override or bypass this entity to get a testing agency in place if in the event they refuse to recognize it due to industry pressures and the feet that would get stepped on as a result.
I don't know, I'm just thinking out loud.

I look at home schooled children. I have a neighbor family that home shooled their kids. The son ended up testing extremely high on the college entry test and he got into Cal Poly. He is now an engineer with Boeing. Both parents are highly educated and knew that they could provide schooling that was far superior to anything offered at a public or private school.
I don't see why dive students can't do the same thing.
There is no way to do alternative study and get a certification now through any of the established agencies. You have to go through the whole class.

 

[John C. Ratliff]

Eric,

I've been following this discussion for a while now, but I have no idea what WRSTC is; could you enlighten me?

A lot of people here probably don't realize that the LA County Underwater Instructors and NAUI were were set up to preclude the government setting up instruction requirements for scuba diving in the early 1960s. At that time, diving was considered on par with FAA flight instruction, and you can see where flight instruction for pilots went. We don't have the equivalent of the FAA for scuba instruction, and we have the Conference for Co-operation on Aquatics, NAUI, the YMCA, and LA County Underwater Instructors to thank for that. The Conference for Co-operation on Aquatics existed before either NAUI or the LA County Underwater Instructors, and had national organizations such as the American National Red Cross, Boy Scouts of America, American Association for Health, Physical Education and Recreation, National Safety Council, National Research Council, National Collegiate Athletic Association, and a number of other organizations is members. The first edition of The Science of Skin and Scuba Diving was published in 1957 after being written and under review for two years.

All this effort was to keep diving instruction from coming under the purview of the federal government like happened with flying, from what I've heard. The profit motive was not a part of this equation at that time. Now, we are in danger of loosing this autonomy because of the "dumbing down" of the underwater instruction and the branching out of many, many specialty courses which used to be a part of the basic scuba course.

'Just some food for thought.

SeaRat

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Eric,

I've been following this discussion for a while now, but I have no idea what WRSTC is; could you enlighten me?

A lot of people here probably don't realize that the LA County Underwater Instructors and NAUI were were set up to preclude the government setting up instruction requirements for scuba diving in the early 1960s. At that time, diving was considered on par with FAA flight instruction, and you can see where flight instruction for pilots went. We don't have the equivalent of the FAA for scuba instruction, and we have the Conference for Co-operation on Aquatics, NAUI, the YMCA, and LA County Underwater Instructors to thank for that. The Conference for Co-operation on Aquatics existed before either NAUI or the LA County Underwater Instructors, and had national organizations such as the American National Red Cross, Boy Scouts of America, American Association for Health, Physical Education and Recreation, National Safety Council, National Research Council, National Collegiate Athletic Association, and a number of other organizations is members. The first edition of The Science of Skin and Scuba Diving was published in 1957 after being written and under review for two years.

All this effort was to keep diving instruction from coming under the purview of the federal government like happened with flying, from what I've heard. The profit motive was not a part of this equation at that time. Now, we are in danger of loosing this autonomy because of the "dumbing down" of the underwater instruction and the branching out of many, many specialty courses which used to be a part of the basic scuba course.

'Just some food for thought.

SeaRat

The WRSTC (World Recreational Scuba Training Council) is an organization that sets the standards by which all recreational instruction agencies (PADI, NAUI, SSI, etc.) follow for the minimum required (or prescribed) skills and knowledge for what makes up modern day scuba training.
Who the WRSTC BOD are and their affiliation with the said rec agencies I don't know, but it's worth finding out.
I'm curious as to whether they are completely independent, or are they same people running PADI (example only) the same people sitting on the board of the WRSTC?

Just like there is a CA smog law that prevents auto repair shops from performing smog certifications to avoid corruption and passing off dirty running cars. They have developed "Smog Only" certification stations which are privately owned BTW, and they are not allowed to do any repairs at these facilities. All they can do is hook your car up to the machine and test it. The results go straight to DMV via internet from the testing machine so there is no way to fudge the results and pass a dirty car.

Another example of regulation that I think works is contractors licencing. Could you imagine what it would be like without some sort of regulation and standards for home building! What if it was left to individual builders to decide what is built correctly when all they can think about is how much money they can make. Better yet, what if there was a licensing agency but it was private and run by the builders, you don't think there would be any corruption and cheaply sub standard houses built?

This is kinda what I think about dive training the way it is now.
Dive training is declining because they get to write their own rules, and there is no one to tell them any different.
Profit orientation definitely has a way of corrupting the original integrity and the intentions of the agencies from then to now.
Then it was a public service, now it's big business.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

Some agencies do not use RSTC guidelines as they are so ridiculously low. Even the signatories to the RSTC seem not to follow the guidelines when it affects the bottom line.

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