The problem with most agency curriculums is that they don't continually assess and progress diver ability, especially in respect to fundamental skills.
BSAC has a tacit assessment system, based on diving frequently in a club environment that includes on-going mentoring with club instructors.
Agencies like GUE have benchmark assessments (i.e. Fundies), along with further formal assessments at each training level.
Whether tacit or formal, systems of progressively rigorous competency assessment serve to ensure that diver
ability actually increases in-line with
qualification progression.
The mainstream recreational curriculum doesn't have
any tangible ability assessment process as qualification level rises.
Beyond the dubious performance standards for fundamental skills assessed at OW level, the diving student can progress through
every course in the recreational curriculum and
never expect to have their fundamental competencies tested for continuation or progression.
After OW qualification, the next time that fundamental competencies are formally assessed isn't until DM (Pro) or technical training.
Even Pro assessments aren't of a higher ability level than what OW students need to achieve.
Yes, they're 'demonstration quality', as opposed to mere 'mastery', but the parameters of the assessed skills don't change.
For instance, a DM or instructor doesn't ever have to perform the 'hover' for longer duration or within finer depth tolerances than an OW student would...
This, of course, leads to a situation where there are
zero ability-based limitations on continuation training through the
entire mainstream curriculum of courses.
Put simply, the diver needn't ever concern themselves with actually 'getting better' before enrolling upon, and graduating from, any course throughout the recreational syllabus.
There's no assessment-stimulated motivation for the diver to practice and develop themselves in preparation for further training. There's not even a motivation to maintain basic OW skills.
In their defence, with no progressively stringent assessments provided, the diver can be forgiven for not even knowing, or considering, what improved fundamental competency consists of.
The classic smoke-screen of "
get more experience", is used to justify this lack of competency training/assessment... as if "
getting experience" somehow absolves agencies and instructors from creating tangible improvements to fundamental skills.
"Ah... you're qualified for AOW, Rescue, Nitrox, Wreck, Navigation, Night diving... and you've done Peak Performance Buoyancy training.... but you still have non-existent fundamental skills?
You need to go away and get 'EXPERIENCE'
It's your fault, not ours.
Anyway, you should sign up for a Deep Diver course now".
We see the results of this through '
highly qualified' divers who nonetheless possess
little actual diving ability.
This lack of assessment creates a situation whereby
no assumptions can be made about diver
ability on the basis of their certification level.
This is also true of 'experience'. Experience is too variable to use as an accurate predictor of diver competency. Experience based on flawed fundamentals and zero rectifying skill assessments can just as easily lead to negative, rather than positive, competency development.
Hence, we have dive operations that demand check-out dives and/or impose strict limits on what they'll enable customer divers to do.
This is why decompression diving cannot currently exist in mainstream recreational diving.
This is also why decompression training is currently reserved to 'technical diving' levels... where,
finally, the diver is subjected to tangible ability/competency assessments.
The mainstream recreational curriculum '
never says no' to divers based on any formal competency assessment. It doesn't stop anyone enrolling on any course they desire and it doesn't stop them qualifying either.
Because the system "
doesn't say no" based on assessed competency... it has to balance risk by "
saying no" in respect to permitted activities. i.e. no deco.
The crux of the issue is that decompression diving training
demands an assessed level of competency.
Of course, many divers want their cake and to eat it also.
They enjoy carefree progression in a mainstream recreational curriculum that doesn't impede them in any way based on their (un)demonstrated and (un)assessed competency.
Yet, they also want to be empowered to partake in aggressive or advanced diving practices, in which increased risks demand proven, reliable and assessed competencies.
Perhaps divers just get too familiar with mainstream agencies 'never saying no' and it leads to false assumptions that the restrictions applied to them are entirely superficial ('
Put Another Dollar In' etc) and not the result of having enjoyed an limitless rise through a curriculum which at no time asks them to improve and demonstrate fundamental competencies.
