New CDWS license exam

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Interceptor121

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I learn that all current holders of a CDWS card will have to retake the exam in 2010. The new exam is similar to the divemaster one with 5 section of 20 questions. I am sure there are many seasoned instructors actually worried about it and I worry if the Egyptian diving staff will actually be scored fairly...
 
Someone has managed to get their hands on a copy of the CDWS exam and have scanned and posted it on the internet at (not allowed to post the link, but if you search Facebook for 'Peter Diver' that person has posted it with a link to their website)

If you are a non-egyptian, then you sit the exam and pay 50LE, before they issue you with your card you then have to apply for a work permit and get a dive centre to sponsor you, and that's a whole other ball game. The work permit takes around 5-6weeks IF you've got a good lawyer that knows what he's doing. All of this costs between 3500-4500LE which includes having a blood test (if you are HIV positive you get kicked out the country-hell of a way to find out). Once you have done all of this, you then go back to CDWS and pay another 50LE for them to issue you with your card...good luck!!!
 
Sat the exam last November. Its a farce. Its not divemaster standard at all. If you're open water with any element of common sense you'll pass the exam. The questions are laughable and test knowledge of nothing.

All the great questions like "Cone snails make excellent pets" and several options being "Shout, stamp your feet and let everyone know who's in charge".

Its a complete waste of time and money and 15 minutes of your life you'll never get back. If CDWS was the slightest bit serious about improving standards they'd actually make the exam modelled on DM standard questions. However they didnt bother, same laughable ones as the year before but twice as many.

Not really worth the effort anyway, as suspected they haven't bothered policing dive sites or areas to check for work permits or valid CDWS cards so the vast majority of centres are completely ignoring it and continuing as normal. A bit annoying if you've paid 3500 or so for a work permit but as expected from a toothless organisation.
Most centres are employing freelancers with no CDWS or work permit as normal.

As for the blood test, in theory yes there is one. In reality they wont bother actually checking the blood and just take the 150LE off you. 9 of us did it at once, the blood was taken, they didnt even bother labelling the sample tubes and just put all of them in the same bag and shoved it in a cupboard.

With a good lawyer or centre you can probably do the work permit with 1 trip to sharm and 2 to El Tor (if sinai) and take 5-6 weeks. Total cost 3500 or so as said. But why bother? If its not enforced, not policed and nobody cares id save the money!
 
Old thread but since it has been dug up again...

Agree with String - the exam is easy. If an instructor were to fail it, then they really need to rethink their career strategy and invest in a spatula because their only future will be in flipping burgers.

The only way a person might get a question wrong is because the questions are badly worded, and very badly translated into other languages.

Egyptian Staff are required to sit the same exam and many were quite rightly worried about the test, mostly because there is no arabic version (or there wasn't when I did mine last year).

The blood test involves collecting some blood - not one of my colleagues had their sample labelled and some went in large groups like String. If they actually did test the blood and one result came back positive, nobody would have any idea who it was!

Work permits have so far been ignored. Freelance staff are allowed by CDWS regulations to work on the Sharm boats, appearing on the guest list rather than as staff; this is a concession to the fact that most instructors in Sharm are freelance and many are temporary over the summer period. I have heard that the work permits might be more rigorously enforced when current CDWS licenses run out, but this is rumour and speculation.

My permit cost me 2200 LE + 150 for the blood test + 100 for exam and card + 100 for the "letter of excellence" I was required to submit with my application for some reason.

For some odd reason my passport has had to go back to Cairo for my work permit to be "finalised" - I don't know what that means since it is already stuck into my passport.... Weirdness!

All in all I am pleased I have one - it was a pain in the arse and an unnecessary expense but it has helped from time to time when the Jetty police get all official at you...! :D

Cheers

C.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

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