Is there a "hardest cert/most stringent certifier?"

[boulderjohn]

Which operator is this? Name and city please. Or is this the mysterious unknown merely rumored internet operator?

I have yet to have any operator or instructor refuse to accept a GUE or UTD card as "legitimate". Smart business people ask who I trained with (yes instructor names), where and when and how much diving and at what level I have been doing since that time. They rarely ask to see the actual plastic.

Believe it or not, there was a ScubaBoard thread a few years ago in which an employee of a shop (and, I suspect, a relative of the owner) in Texas said they would not recognize anything from either GUE or UTD because they did not consider them to be legitimate training agencies. As you might guess, the thread got quite contentious, and people were using their best guesswork to identify the shop. They figured out it was NAUI, but that is as far as it got. Eventually a new poster came on and said that the person who had been posting on behalf of that shop would no longer be participating on ScubaBoard, and that brought the matter to a close.

As you might guess, that position got zero support, and I suspect you won't find any other places with that position. I can't imagine any operation taking that kind of a stance.

 

[DevonDiver]

1, Agencies determine the minimum standards. This establishes the lowest acceptable baseline for agency course quality.

2. Instructors determine the maximum standards. This influences the highest quality an individual course can be provided at.

How do agencies determine their minimum standards baseline?

A. Defining which assessed skills must contribute to a given course/syllabus.
B. Defining to what extent the instructor can interpret acceptable skill performance.​

Most equivalent courses, across the spectrum of agencies, contain virtually identical skills. What differs is the tolerances applied to those skills, and what an instructor is directed to accept as a 'pass'.

As an example, let's consider buoyancy control. Here are different tolerances that can be applied to that fundamental skill:

1). Demonstrate effective buoyancy control.
2) Demonstrate effective buoyancy control for 15 minutes.
3) Demonstrate effective buoyancy control for 15 minutes, with no deviation from depth +/- 50cm.
4) Demonstrate effective buoyancy control for 15 minutes, with no deviation from depth +/- 50cm, in horizontal trim +/- 25 degrees.

As greater definition is applied to the performance standard, there is less freedom of interpretation for the instructor. Less freedom of interpretation reduces the opportunity for weak instructors to apply weak standards of assessment.

You can imagine how a sausage-factory instructor running 3 day open-water courses, for 8 students per course, might be tempted to interpret "effective buoyancy control' so that the course doesn't run over the stated dives/days. You can also imagine how an independent, tech-level, instructor running a private 1-2-1 open water class, with no set timescale, might interpret that same requirement.

A good instructor would gravitate to a higher interpretation of #1... to the level of #3 or #4.
A bad instructor would interpret #1 to the lowest possible order... in order to make performance criteria meet a timescale.

We, the consumer, could think of this 'freedom of interpretation' in the context of whether an agency empowers good or bad quality training.

The mass-market agencies would think of this as empowering individual instructors to meet the demands of the market; where quick, cheap and easy training is the demand of most consumers. At the same time, they would not wish to limit or curtail those instructors/centers that wanted to target a smaller quality-driven student demographic and would voluntarily institute higher interpretations for that reason. This is, however, not the agency focus.

In contrast, niche or specialized agencies have an over-riding need to enforce good quality training. They are competing for the quality driven student demographic, where cost, timescale and commitment are lesser concerns. Reputation is important, so they cannot risk their instructors interpreting low definitions for skills.

Could a PADI instructor run courses with comparative difficulty/stringency to a GUE instructor? Yes.
Could a GUE instructor run courses to satisfy low-budget, low-commitment student divers? No.

Ultimately, it's the individual instructor who determines the upper boundaries of course quality.
The agency determines the lower boundaries.

 

[Akimbo]

Somewhat tongue in cheek, but the most stringent and best in almost all ways is probably the US or UK Navies. You will not be taught the sensibilities about neutral buoyancy but you will understand buoyancy VERY well and be more than capable of archiving it. You will also become very panic resistant, be comfortable working in zero visibility, and receive a thorough understanding of diving physics and physiology. You will also be paid to get in really good physical condition.

For example the US Navy Training Schedule (not BUD/S, Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL) is:

Scuba, 25 training days
Second Class Diver, 89 training days
First Class Diver, 65 training days​

 

[Jim Lapenta]

These are the two cards most often looked for ; VISA and MasterCard.

 

[ScubaInChicago]

Not sure why UDIE (Underwater Dive Instructors and Explorers) isn't making some headway in this category? They've been certifying some of the diving elite for many years (for the right price).

 

[ScubaInChicago]

...

 

[Gary_Ward]

Every time someone says "It is the instructor and not the agency" then they should be forced to sit and watch this "agency approved" training video. And Boulder John is not the only instructor I know of who has either withdrawn from a dive shop or kicked from it for not following these "on your knees" agency protocols.

That's quite an old Steve Prior video, produced and sumbitted prior to PADI and the Course Directors looking at better ways to teach skills neutrally buoyant. I know Steve has released a new video with the adapted method being shown. See this video from Andy Phillip which shows what PADI and progressive instructors are now trying to teach.


The key issue from my perspective is that there is a large group of 'old-time' instructors who don't want to adapt or change, they have their ways of doing things, and therefore the time it will take for these changes to become the defacto-standard in teaching will take time. I've just taught an IDC where we looked at getting all of the participants to practice this method - but many struggled because they had been taught from OW-DM on their knees. We percevered and we had then passing their IE either on fin-tips or neutral. None of the other candidates on the IE from other CD's were even aware of the attempt to change the way we teach

 

[kelemvor]

RAID is worth to look at.

Interesting, but statements like this on the website degrade their credibility.

Where should I buy my dive gear?
Let's speak openly- there are always deals to be had on line for just about everything. When it comes to buying dive equipment though there is only one place you should go and that is your local RAID dive centre.

 

[Dave Bevan]

Rec2 includes some "rescue diver" curriculum, I believe.

And yes GUE is uniformly better than the rest.

GUE cover rescue techniques during fundamentals and recreational 1. It's their belief every diver should be able to rescue in the water.

 

[PfcAJ]

GUE cover rescue techniques during fundamentals and recreational 1. It's their belief every diver should be able to rescue in the water.

Yeah but it's pretty much "bring diver to surface". Proper rescue course goes into way more detail.