Please remember that I said I was describing the agency a large percentage of ScubaBoard users seem to advocate. I was putting their beliefs into words. I did not say it was one I advocated.
And OW certification would cost way more than $5,000.
Build the Perfect Certification Agency
- Thread starter SeaHorse81
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And OW certification would cost way more than $5,000.
K
KeithG
Guest
This thread is way out of control. From a CONSUMER perspective, here is my perfect agency:
Me - here is my $5
Agency - Thank you! Here is your universal works everywhere card!
... (later)
Me - operator, here is my agency card
Operator - thank you, here is you compressed air, enjoy your dive, and please act like an adult.
Me - here is my $5
Agency - Thank you! Here is your universal works everywhere card!
... (later)
Me - operator, here is my agency card
Operator - thank you, here is you compressed air, enjoy your dive, and please act like an adult.
If certification that works everywhere costs $5, nobody will really test anything, and you will soon find yourself on boats surrounded by unsafe, panicking divers. The rate of incidents will rapidly increase, boat operators (or whoever ends up getting sued as a result) will begin to charge exorbitant amounts of money to cover their exorbitant insurance rates, and you as a consumer will lose in the long run.
Where do I sign up... to be an instructor!
OP
SeaHorse81
Contributor
I'd be curious to know what you do advocate. Or do you feel that our current system is already as good as it can reasonably be?
I'm reminded of a different old joke regarding-the quest for - and desirability of - perfection.
OP
SeaHorse81
Contributor
I wish I'd titled the thread better, actually. What it should be called is "Build a Better Certification Agency" because perfect is, of course, a silly concept. My hope is that unfortunate choice of words won't discourage serious brainstorming. There have certainly been some thoughtful contributions so far. The big question that dogs it all is how to put in place what you really want but also have it be stable and sustainable enough to work in the real world.
Eric Sedletzky
Contributor
I don't think we need better cert agencies, I think we need a better system.
How I would set it up:
Every instructor would be independant from the actual cert agency. They could either be employed by a dive shop and get a salary or they could be fully independant and have a "school" similar to a driving school where they would teach everything from basic swimming all the way through scuba and specialties beyond.
You pick an aquatic school based on merit, advertising, word of mouth, referral from a dive shop, whatever.
Pay your money and go through the school.
The cert agency:
...Would be an entity (similar to DMV) where you are expected to know the skills of before you go in to take the written exam and diving (driving) test.
You make an appointment.
You go in, pay your money, and take the written exam, swimming test and other swim skills, do all your pool tests.
Set up for the open water dives however many required (irrelevant at this point). You would have to pass all the prior test to be eligible to take the open water exam.
There would be two or more open water endorsments, cold ocean , warm ocean, inland fresh, rough water management, etc.
You would automatically be endorsed for the conditions in which you took your open water. If for example you did your open water in a quarry and decided you wanted to go to Monterey and go kelp diving then you would have to do a checkout dive by someone certified to give you the endorsment (they would need to make sure you understand buoyancy and added task loading in heavy wetsuit, drysuit, etc.) The class portion of the added endorsment (if any) could be given prior by any instructor who teaches it.
If you were endorsed to dive cold water and wanted to go to warm there would be no reason for any added endorsment since warm water is ten times easier to dive in than cold. There could be other endorsments such as altitude, deep, etc just like specialties now.
If you failed at any of these skills in the testing faze then you would have to go back to your instructor and get in straightened out since the instructor is the one who was responsible for your training and skills building.
By keeping the instructors and cert agency separate, it would create an autoamtic check and balance system. As it is right now there would be a lot of instructors out of business.
It would be in the best interest of the instructor to make sure students know the skills and are proficient BEFORE they go get tested.
And the cool part. If you wanted, you could get a book and teach yourself to swim, skin dive, scuba dive, all the skills, etc.
As long as you pass all the skills at the cert office you are good to go.
The cert office would have everything on site, pool for swimming and deep end for scuba skills, class rooms, etc. It would be funded by testing fees.
It would also follow the standard set by the RSTC., or maybe a new one if the RSTC is too obsolete and crusty.
And yes, this system would cost more than scuba costs now.
How I would set it up:
Every instructor would be independant from the actual cert agency. They could either be employed by a dive shop and get a salary or they could be fully independant and have a "school" similar to a driving school where they would teach everything from basic swimming all the way through scuba and specialties beyond.
You pick an aquatic school based on merit, advertising, word of mouth, referral from a dive shop, whatever.
Pay your money and go through the school.
The cert agency:
...Would be an entity (similar to DMV) where you are expected to know the skills of before you go in to take the written exam and diving (driving) test.
You make an appointment.
You go in, pay your money, and take the written exam, swimming test and other swim skills, do all your pool tests.
Set up for the open water dives however many required (irrelevant at this point). You would have to pass all the prior test to be eligible to take the open water exam.
There would be two or more open water endorsments, cold ocean , warm ocean, inland fresh, rough water management, etc.
You would automatically be endorsed for the conditions in which you took your open water. If for example you did your open water in a quarry and decided you wanted to go to Monterey and go kelp diving then you would have to do a checkout dive by someone certified to give you the endorsment (they would need to make sure you understand buoyancy and added task loading in heavy wetsuit, drysuit, etc.) The class portion of the added endorsment (if any) could be given prior by any instructor who teaches it.
If you were endorsed to dive cold water and wanted to go to warm there would be no reason for any added endorsment since warm water is ten times easier to dive in than cold. There could be other endorsments such as altitude, deep, etc just like specialties now.
If you failed at any of these skills in the testing faze then you would have to go back to your instructor and get in straightened out since the instructor is the one who was responsible for your training and skills building.
By keeping the instructors and cert agency separate, it would create an autoamtic check and balance system. As it is right now there would be a lot of instructors out of business.
It would be in the best interest of the instructor to make sure students know the skills and are proficient BEFORE they go get tested.
And the cool part. If you wanted, you could get a book and teach yourself to swim, skin dive, scuba dive, all the skills, etc.
As long as you pass all the skills at the cert office you are good to go.
The cert office would have everything on site, pool for swimming and deep end for scuba skills, class rooms, etc. It would be funded by testing fees.
It would also follow the standard set by the RSTC., or maybe a new one if the RSTC is too obsolete and crusty.
And yes, this system would cost more than scuba costs now.
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The most significant thing any agency could do to improve their curriculum is to create higher standards for becoming an instructor. As it is, you can become an instructor while barely knowing anything about real-world diving. Instructors who go through the mills are capable of reciting the course material quite well, and of training people how to perform "skills" while kneeling ... but they rarely know enough about the fundamentals to teach them properly. And if a student happens to ask a question that's not in the book the usual response is akin to a deer in the headlights ... either that or some total BS that the instructor heard from one of their instructors.
There's nothing wrong with the agencies as they exist today ... if the classes were taught as the agencies initially envisioned them the training would be more than adequate. This is evidenced by the fact that ALL agencies have both good and bad instructors and turn out both good and bad divers. So that tells me that it's the instructor who really makes the difference ... not the agency. Raise the bar on what it takes to reach first the DM, then the instructor level, and there would be far fewer complaints about the inadequacies of dive instruction.
But instructor training is a cash cow, and there's a high motivation to capture the initial enthusiasm of divers and convince them to "turn pro" ... often within a few months of having taken their OW class, and with a bare minimum of dives that's almost adequate to get them comfortable in the water.
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
There's nothing wrong with the agencies as they exist today ... if the classes were taught as the agencies initially envisioned them the training would be more than adequate. This is evidenced by the fact that ALL agencies have both good and bad instructors and turn out both good and bad divers. So that tells me that it's the instructor who really makes the difference ... not the agency. Raise the bar on what it takes to reach first the DM, then the instructor level, and there would be far fewer complaints about the inadequacies of dive instruction.
But instructor training is a cash cow, and there's a high motivation to capture the initial enthusiasm of divers and convince them to "turn pro" ... often within a few months of having taken their OW class, and with a bare minimum of dives that's almost adequate to get them comfortable in the water.
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
Funny, I was just about to address this point. However, I don't think that "perfect" is a silly concept... it's just a different concept. The concept that is silly, however, is the assumption that there is only one version of perfect. The most perfect apple in the world is just plain weird... as a potato.
---------- Post added January 6th, 2015 at 12:37 PM ----------
From a business model-standpoint this is a foundational issue for the industry. In the current model, the breakdown of the delivery of "as intended" training occurs because the agency's customer is the person/place that DELIVERS the training... rather than the person who ultimately RECEIVES the training.
And from an agency business-model standpoint this is not just a problem of low-quality training. I had my eyes opened to this after meeting with senior PADI folks at DEMA and getting to seeing the fully integrated "as intended" version of the PADI story. All of my training - from rec specialties to DM, various Tec certs, through my IDC - was very high-quality by some PADI instructors who are known to be among the best in the industry. What I guess I never fully realized, however, is that I only ever got ONE shop/instructors version of the PADI story. The story I got was not deficient in any way... it was just slightly different.
"It's not the agency, it's the instructor's version of the agency."
That's the problem.
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