Concerns About Length of Open Water Course

[The Chairman]

Don't forget that most academics are done online. I don't teach a two day course, but my students come into the class far better prepared than ten years ago.

 

[gmanstan]

For some 2 days is fine .I read & studied all course material & loved the pace of the class(of course I'd been watching Sea Hunt , Voyage to the Bottom of the sea & anything I could since I was a kid) After my cert I was in the water 6-8 dives a month(some solo, some SOSD).My partner who took the same class was not as comfortable and the instructor suggested 1 more pool session and a few more supervised dives(at no cost, just to tag along with next class) Point is 2 days may be long enough for some to master basics enough to work on more skills outside class direction(Although I went for AOW, Rescue, Night, Navigation,Deep within 2 months of cert) But an instructor should not "pass" anyone that he doesnt feel can safely navigate basic skills and should find a way to offer more hands on instruction(free or reasonable rate)
2 days is a "Minimum" not set in stone time frame.A good instructor will do what it takes to put his signature on that "OW Card" with a clear conscience .

 

[Jim Lapenta]

I was going to post in this thread earlier but had some Christmas shopping to do. Almost got it all done.
Going back and reading your original post I see some serious contradictions. If you love your shop and instructors and they have such high standards why would you even feel the need to send an email to PADI? Obviously you don't feel they have such high standards.

What I see is what should be happening in response to the situation. Your conscience is telling you that the operations that are doing this are full of crap. You have a code of ethics and morals that is giving you a hard time. As it should be. Why then are you sugar coating the problem in your complaint to PADI? Why the flowery language and praise for operations that have you feel are producing walking time bombs that could self destruct? And more importantly what are you doing about it? There are agencies that do have minimum times and content that are higher. I cannot take a student into open water who cannot do skills and demonstrate proper buoyancy. I cannot take a student into open water that I feel would not be able to assist ME should I have a problem on their checkout dives. I cannot hand them a card without knowing that they can go right back the next weekend and plan, execute, and safely return from a dive with a buddy of equal skill and training and no assistance from any dive pro. I have to be able to look at them and say not only would I dive with them but I would let one of my kids dive with them and me not be there.

If this bugs you so much here is what you do. Start talking to other instructors who feel the same way. There have to be some. If not you have a serious problem. Then form an instructional co op to bypass the shops. Charge the same and then provide a class that you feel is required. And publicize the hell out of it! Use social media, flyers on poles at dive sites, and any other means necessary to educate people. Will it be hard? Yes, at first. Then there will come a point where students will seek you out. When your students start showing up at sites squared away and competent. Others will ask them where they got their training. Make sure they tell them.

If necessary pool your resources for gear and air fills. Most of all keep up the pressure and let people in your area know that something better is available and most importantly why you feel it is so necessary. Unless you get the word out nothing will change. Until something bad happens. But you also need to get this "they are so great BS" out of your head. IF they truly were your own ethics and morals would not be kicking in like it is.

 

[CAPTAIN SINBAD]

The OP is right. I am glad to know that there is someone out there who thinks like I do.

I got certified in 2001 and have seen this gradual idiotization of diving education by some agencies. When I was certified by PADI in 2001, my OW took a month. It would include class room sessions involving slide presentations, dive tables etc. Then there were two pool days (if I remember correctly) and open water dives were done over 2 days. When I got my AOW in 2007, the whole class with 5 specialties was done over two days. The frightening thing was that with me there were some other students who had gotten OW certified last weekend and were getting AOW one week later. So in 96 hours of total instruction time (excluding self study) we were graduating divers who could dive to a depth of 130 feet! Now keep in mind that some of the students are only taken to a depth of 70 feet by their instructors during training and are given C-cards that qualify them to dive to 130. There is lot of difference between a 70 foot dive and 130 but for the ease of the dive shops and instructors, most C-card agencies allow them to treat 65 feet of depth (65 - 130) as "the same thing sort of!"

The purpose of a regulating body is to identify and fill holes in training that may be profitable to the instructors but dangerous to the students but if you have a training body which is funded by the very people whom it is meant to police, then you will see a systematic idiotization over time. Some deliberate loop-holes in training are allowed to exist as they result in profits for members.

Imagine if pilots were trained the same way divers are trained. A 48 hour crash course in landing take off and flight if you study all the manuals at home!!! I teach video editing to journalists and even though video editing a news report is not a potentially dangerous activity, if I wanted to teach them everything in 48 hours my company would never buy that! Yet in dive industry there are legal Waivers meant to save everyones back side when someone dies. These are given to the instructors by the same regulating bodies that they themselves have funded. These waivers have one thing that allows the instructor (as well as the certifying agency) to get away in case of an incident. The bottom line of all this is ...

"ALL DIVERS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR OWN SAFETY"

Brilliant innit?

 

[DevonDiver]

If this bugs you so much here is what you do. Start talking to other instructors who feel the same way. There have to be some. If not you have a serious problem. Then form an instructional co op to bypass the shops. Charge the same and then provide a class that you feel is required. And publicize the hell out of it! Use social media, flyers on poles at dive sites, and any other means necessary to educate people. Will it be hard? Yes, at first. Then there will come a point where students will seek you out. When your students start showing up at sites squared away and competent. Others will ask them where they got their training. Make sure they tell them.

To be fair, this approach is only primarily relevant in 'home' location diving. In holiday areas, where people only visit for short durations, there is much less (or none) word-of-mouth recommendations by customers etc... The majority of the scuba industry is in holiday areas - overseas for most customers.

For instructors working outside their own country, there is very limited capacity to 'go independent' or 'form a co-op'; because an established employer is needed for the provision of a work permit. It's a logistical burden... a nightmare in some locations; where the issue of working permits/visa can bolster employing dive operations power to the level of enforced servitude.

So... whilst many of the replies of this nature, given on the thread, are sound - they are also of limited perspective. They wouldn't 'fix the industry', because the industry is global and most of it is not restricted to home town 'merica...

 

[Dondon462]

This is how bad it can get!! In China..a girl had just learnt to swim in previous 12 months, never snorkeled, signed up for a PADI OW course, watched a Padi DVD in class for 1 hour, then 2 x 2 hour sessions in a 2mtr deep pool, then one boat dive to 10 mtrs...she was then given a PADI OW certification!!!...Hmmm...I feel for instructors these days!

 

[Centrals]

This is how bad it can get!! In China..a girl had just learnt to swim in previous 12 months, never snorkeled, signed up for a PADI OW course, watched a Padi DVD in class for 1 hour, then 2 x 2 hour sessions in a 2mtr deep pool, then one boat dive to 10 mtrs...she was then given a PADI OW certification!!!...Hmmm...I feel for instructors these days!

The instructor is the problem NOT the diver or agency.

 

[Bob DBF]

Imagine if pilots were trained the same way divers are trained. A 48 hour crash course in landing take off and flight if you study all the manuals at home!!!

You should keep up with the Asiana Flight 214 crash inquiry, seems the training of the pilots is less than stunning.

The pilot of Asiana Flight 214 didn't understand the plane's auto-throttle system, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) told press after conducting interviews with those involved in the accident. Lee Kang-kuk, the pilot in charge of the flight, set its throttles to idle, mistakenly believing the computers would keep the plane above the minimum speed set for landing, and ultimately causing the July crash at San Francisco International Airport.

The findings contradict earlier reports that there may have been a fault with the auto-throttle system. Rather, the pilot in charge of the flight was still being trained on the plane, and was unaware the throttle system would behave in the way it did. Some blame is being leveled on the pilot's instructor, who failed to abort the landing in time and also took over eight seconds to heed the speed warnings and attempt to gain altitude.

Certified, and with an instructor...


Fortunately, the US and a lot of other countries require way more training and experience before being allowed in an airliner cockpit, in any capacity.



Bob
---------------------------
I may be old, but I'm not dead yet.

 

[DevonDiver]

Who gets blamed for crime rates? The police/government or the population?

Just saying...

 

[bracko]

Although I accept PADI's response by saying that the course is based on performance requirements and not time in some way I believe they dogged my question.

I will post my original email and their response below and I look forward to comments/Feedback.

I feel like with there response I have no alternative than not to teach in Victoria.

I'm not sure how they can be dodging the question if you believe their opinion that the course is performance based?

the OW course is competency based training, not time based training. The students gain the qualification when they show adequate competency to meet or exceed the requirements prescribed in the training material.

almost all training is now done this way. It is no longer enough for a RTO (registered training organisation) to simply put people through lectures for X hours and walk away with the assumption they weren't asleep.

the responsibility (and risk) is on you to certify these students when and only when they are competent in the prescribed skill requirements.

this is something that all people who work in safety fields are familiar with and just show's that PADI is with the times when it comes to a risk approach to training and certification. it's also something I'm deeply involved in (not with diving) as a day-to-day job and something I'll probably do my Masters thesis on.

to the question at hand... can a diver be certified in 2 days... personally I think the centre of the bell curve of dive students I have DM'd on courses with left the OW course on time with enough skills to adequetly plan and complete a dive on their own (with a buddy, without a DM) and leave the water with a beating heart. What the course will never teach is how to solve complex and dangerous problems that do happen underwater. the divers to the left extreme of the bell curve need a talking to as to whether they really should be diving at all and the result of that discussion ends up with either more time with instructors or a hearty handshake and a suggestion to take up another hobby. the middle area either need more attention by the DM/OWSI on the course or a "let's go out again next weekend to hone those last few skills"

so is 2 days in a temperate environment with generally large surge, current and swell enough.... it depends on the student.