Comparing this to flight instruction is ridiculous. Flight instructors are licensed and approved by FAA standards, and by the time they can become a CFI, they must earn licenses in instrument, and commercial piloting. There are no such standards for the self-regulated "industry" of scuba diving. Training so-called standards (which are not standards at all), are simply lists of minimal skills proficiencies as determined by private corporations (like PADI, SDI, etc.), in order to provide a guideline for teaching subjects to their instructors....and to comply with the minimum requirements of their liability insurers. This model has nothing in common, with flight training......particularly since when flying a plane.....an incompetent or untrained pilot has the possibility to crash into someone's house and kill bystanders.
---------- Post added November 22nd, 2013 at 07:58 PM ----------
Many posters, since I originally posted more than a year ago, have completely perverted the meaning and intent of my original post. The point was, and remains...... that the training agencies themselves, have destroyed the business model for diver training; by dumbing down all training standards, and having such minimalist prerequisites for training and experience to just become an instructor. My assertion that having 100 dives worth of "experience" is substandard to become an instructor....is one I stand by. How many people with 100 dives have conducted a REAL-LIFE rescue of another diver? Answer.... Few to None. How many "certified instructors" after 100 dives and an 8-day ITC have conducted a REAL-LIFE rescue......same answer. 100 dives of experience....or even 150 dives of experience, and an 8-day ITC..... even if the newly minted instructor displays relatively good skills......will NEVER reveal how that "instructor" will deal with adversity, or a real in-water emergency with some obese diabetic student who starts drowning, because they can't handle being squeezed into a wetsuit for the 55 degree temperature quarry dive. The REALITY....(for the other earlier poster who mentioned Instructor Training courses in the context of refuting my assertions)..........is that Course Directors DON"T really train instructors....contrary to what you may believe.... most spend their time to direct the evaluators......and evaluators are there to make sure that their instructor candidates meet the minimum requirements for instructor qualification as set forth by the training agencies. FEW, course directors or evaluators....ever spend extensive time or energy....truly training instructors in terms of skills in diving or teaching......they can't......because even instructor courses have been dumbed down in order to make them cheap......in order to attract and certify as many warm bodies as they can. I first became a NAUI instructor in 1981.....at that time the requirements were 250 certified dives over at least 4 years of diving...FOLLOWED BY....completing a Divemaster and Assistant Instructor training course (each lasting 8 days). You could not for example, join an ITC, if 100% of your diving was inland. At least 50 (as best I can recall....it may have been 75) of your 250 dives had to be open-ocean from a boat. Only after such prerequisites, could you attend a NAUI ITC, which in those days were 16 consecutive 12-hour days of grueling training, most of it off-shore in the Ocean. Most ITC's had a higher than 50% attrition rate, mine included. By the time I was certified in 1981, there were 6330 NAUI instructors in the United States. Today, there are over 60K, and at least 4 times that number of PADI "instructors".....and that's just 2 agencies. The point is that the standards are not standards at all.......they are sub-standard....whose sole purpose is to maximize the number of instructors out there..... This is because training agencies make money from instructors, by selling to them directly.... training materials, liability insurance, and member dues to stay current. The more instructors there are....the more money a training agency makes...... ..... this is NOT the case for certified recreational divers. Training agencies make a one-time fee to issue a student cert.....; but this is a formality more than a revenue source.......instructors are their main revenue source....the more there are.....the more the training agencies earn in revenue..... as such.....they have created a self-destructive business model.
Some people here mention "supply and demand," but have little understanding about macro-economics. Another way to look at my above comment, is that when training agencies, in an effort to increase their numbers of dues-paying members relentlessly pump out new instructors by the tens of thousands.....people with maybe a year of experience and 100 dives....they pervert the supply-demand dynamic. The unintended consequence, is a broken economic model, continually diminishing of already substandard training for recreational divers, and a situation where literally hundreds of dive shops go bankrupt and close their doors annually...since they can't make money on either training OR retail equipment sales (in competition with on-line and mail-order companies). Other posters replying to my earlier post, have mentioned "unionizing." I NEVER suggested that a union was an answer to the broken economic model of dive-training and instruction......unions are counter-productive. The POINT I made...was that those who are in charge of the main training agencies....need to grow a brain and learn a little bit of about economics and finance......and they need to stop poisoning the industry by FLOODING the market with inexperienced, under-trained instructors........who are seduced, by their early excitement about diving, into believing that being "an instructor" will satisfy their egos and provide them with a means to subsidize the cost of their diving by "instructing."
The point I made, is that the training agencies have CREATED a business model around making dive instructing nothing more than a "hobbyists trade." As long as this condition exists......dive instructing will NEVER provide an economic return in proportion to the cost, liability, risk, effort, and sometimes personal sacrifice, required to deliver a QUALITY training course to students. My proposed solutions were to 1) RESTORE higher standards to leadership level training from certifying agencies..... and 2) Set a minimum suggested retail pricing standard for recreational training provided by instructors.....to stop cut-rate teenaged weekend warriors from becoming instructors after a year of diving, and then giving away low-cost or free training to people just to feel good about themselves.
Perhaps these two proposals are not the BEST solutions to these issues....but they're what I've come up with. If someone has any truly better actionable ideas....then please feel free to share them here. This industry NEEDS solutions to this issue; or NOTHING will change, and recreational diving as an industry will continue to die a slow, insidious, and painful death.
And finally, here are some REAL numbers for you. In 2012....the 4 major training agencies PADI, NAUI, SSI, and SDI, certified a total of just under 203K divers across the US (this actually includes all recreational certifications issued, so many of these were already certified divers earning for example a "rescue diver" qualification course). Between those 4 agencies, there are over 184,000 ACTIVE certified instructors. That comes out to 1.103 certifications issued, per ACTIVE "instructor" in the United States...... That's 1 student per year.......per instructor.
I Rest My Case.
If thats the only reason you join the military and you actually say that to someone, you will be headed to see the psych doc.
