Well, I have just spent a few hours wading through 20 pages of discussion and it seems none of us really know what's going on in today's OW course except maybe in our own small sphere of knowledge, and some obviously don't even know that much.
I have to say I am one of the lucky ones. Even the much derided PADI standards are allowing me to turn out happy comfortable divers who could dive with each other in conditions similar to their OW training on their first dive after said certification. My employers have nearly all wanted me to complete every OW course in 20-22 hours but they have accepted my average of 24-26 hours because my customers are so satisfied with the course. Well, that and the fact that most of my employers have either paid by the head or salary, not hourly.
One of my employers was livid when I would tell prospective Intro participants that I thought they needed to have successfully snorkeled in the ocean first, he was apoplectic when I told prospective OW students it would take about
32 hours of their time to complete the course (~8 hours to really read book, watch video and complete homework) and he was mortified when I told him I refused to certify a couple students because they always took completely full inhalation/exhalations on every breath. He got over the last one when I continued with the fact that I made them pay $75 each for a 5th training dive where they did control their buoyancy with proper breath control and they thanked me for doing it.
Since my training conditions are beautiful, warm, clear, calm sub-tropical ocean (for the most part) I do see how other areas of the world might not be so easy a place to train divers.
It is pretty silly to try to answer the question of the OP with any statistic that seems to exist on the subject of diving. There are way too many unknowns with regards to every stat I've ever seen in print, and even more unknowns for the one's I've only heard. For instance; perhaps the reason only 25% of recreational divers seek continuing education is because the instructors
are giving the divers enough training in the OW course.
When I chose to learn a new activity I usually have some stored images of experts doing that activity at the highest level. I go into my training intending to quickly perform near that proficiency level. I have met very few other people who are so consumed with mastering activities. I believe it is highly likely that most recreational scuba instructors are training their students to a higher level of diving skills than we all see the masses displaying on the popular dive sites. Most of these infrequent divers really don't care to dive the way they were taught to dive, because that would require using grey matter and taking responsibility for themselves.
It's kind of like the cigarette smokers you see with their arm hanging out the car window. You know they know better, but most of them seem to just flick that butt into the street or gutter anyway.
