What training agency

[cudachaser]

NASE is the Rising Star !!!!

 

[santy2506]

Where does WRSTC fit into all this?

 

[Thalassamania]

We discussed this in the past in the PADI vs NAUI thread:

Training is not all the same with some minor differences, for an example at the extreme, most AAUS programs, that are far more complete than PADI or SSI programs, operate comfortably under NAUI standards but could not operate under PADI or SSI standards.

The WRSTC and RSTC do not develop standards that they require the agencies to conform to, rather then codify a woefully inadequate mish-mash of the collected minimums of their members.

...

The RSTC was founded for the purpose of hijacking the Z-86 process of the American National Standards Institute that had been run by the Underwater Society of America (a CMAS affiliate) as well as to try to deflate CMAS' importance at a time when PADI was aggressively trying to expand internationally in a way that we prohibited by CMAS international agreements.

Today the RSTC and WRSTC exist for the purpose of creating credibility for incredibly bad standards. To the best of my knowledge no agency has ever had to raise its standards to join or to maintain their membership. These so called standards are nothing more than a collection of standards in which the least demanding standard of the member agencies in each area are draw together and presented to the populace as an acceptable minimum standard. NAUI was the only organization with enough guts to call them on this.

The RSTC was started to wrest control of the ANSI standards from the then existing Z-86 committee of the Underwater Society of America, they were successful in doing do and immediately reduced the ANSI standard to mirror the least stringent standards of the RSTC members. Thus the new consensual standard became naught but a collection of the lowest requirement in each possible category. It was the opinion of many that this was orchestrated by PADI in order to reduce liability, they being concerned that lack of compliance with such items as required number of hours and dives would be used as prima facia evidence of acting in a wilfully, wantonly or recklessly neglect fashion. The WSRTC was just an extension of the RSTC, aimed at CMAS, to make the RSTC's "new consensus" appear even more widely supported than it was at the time.

There is something that few people in the USA understand, CMAS is not primarily a certifying agency, that is a appendage that was glued on very late in the game. The Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques (CMAS) is the World Underwater Federation. CMAS is the international umbrella organization for recreational diver training organizations represented in the CMAS Technical Committee and underwater sports governed by the CMAS Sport Committee. It also operates a third (Scientific) committee that promotes recreational diver awareness of and involvement in underwater science pursuits and marine conservation.

CMAS was set up so that each national federation could have a seat and a single vote, but that ran up against the US system of completing (but governmentally unrecognized) certifying organizations. Most of the interaction between CMAS and the United States diving world was through the Underwater Society of America, a organization that was more focused on awards programs (NOGI), underwater competition, and spearfishing, than specifically on diver training, which (given the direct tie to LDS and gear sales) is ultimately where the money flow from.

CMAS was designed to provide an international framework of equivalencies for diver and instructor qualifications. Members of the CMAS Council are representatives of recognized national diving organizations that guarantee the CMAS standards are upheld within the constraints of local diving conditions. These national organizations award CMAS qualification cards which have the appropriate CMAS grade on one side and details of the relevant national organization and the person they have qualified on the other.
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