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Hi Alan, In your message you discussed the problem of club-based training changing to american-style commercial thing (in UK), where the customer gets to pay an arm and a leg for education, which in turn comes in different courses that are often overlapping. Here in Finland we're living through the same phase right now. All our training has been CMAS, and club-based. Today we've had PADI for few years and it's here to stay. IANTD was introduced last year, and now one can get nitrox-training for up to instructor level. On many points, I and many others here share your concern for this change. More and more people rush into the sport, which can then be seen in doubled numbers of registered scuba divers in a few years, and hence of course in accident statistics. I'm by no means saying that these accidents were caused by poor training by any training system. But what might have an effect here, is perhaps that different dive training programs compete for customers, and the general trend here has been going towards easier courses and less requirements to pass these courses, in order to attract more students. The PADI system is fixed and very effectively controlled. The CMAS-system our spordivers federation promotes, on the other hand, has changed a lot, from old almost-military-type training towards more "civvy" thing. Also, the quality of instructors, to put it mildly, used to vary a lot. For the most, the change has been good, especially to instructor training and quality. But the real problem is at the "deep end" of the recreational diving envelope: In PADI there is no real deep diving training at all, and in CMAS the training and requirements have been made easier or non-existent. You, being a P2-diver, just take the P3-course,which is mostly divemaster stuff, navigation etc, and suddenly you're qualified to dive to 50 metres! And still, people dive to depths in excess of 40 metres, which in northern Baltic circumstances is not what one can call a piece of cake. In our club, we have started advanced deep trainig within a small circle of divers to enable our own deep air operations safely. We offer this education free of charge. Main goal is to prevent sending anybody home in a bag, not certification. We feel that we ar dedicated to bringing up divers that respect the deep. Although this training doesn't come under any official agency, and doesn't produce any piece of plastic into a divers wallet, it doesn't blow holes in it either. Our divers, who are mostly students iat polytech or university, can't afford the kind of fees that commercial agencies charge. Expensive as the training provided by official agencies might be, it's quality seems to be unquestionable. Some of our divers have seeked tech level deep air training from the States. They took courses with PSA in Florida, which offers superb extended range air diving instruction. After this trip, it was reassuring to see that we were on the right track in composing our training. I've got nothing against somebody making a living as a dive instructor, and charging whatever they like for their services. The problem seems to be that if one wants one of these plastic cards for any kind of additional training, nitrox or other, it will cost a lot of money. The agencies are, just like you said, cartels, and to my understanding do not allow inexpensive training. This they achieve by putting a high price on the piece of plastic itself. It is of course economically good for the instructors to be the only ones to supply training, and in that way dictate the prices. However, this kind of "cartellisation" is not readily accepted in western business ethics (if there is such a thing). I think that the future will see sportdivers federations take up deep air, nitrox etc. training in their programs. This in my opinion is no threat to the industry, since it seems to me that in countries where diving initially was club-based (Nordic countries, UK, etc.), the diveshop-based commercial training and resort-diving are not only doing fine, but also expanding all the time. There are always people who don't want to spend a lot of time the club activities take, but instead just want to pay the money, get the necessary education and go diving to a dive resort. In my opinion that's just fine. And let's face it, we couldn't live without the industry. I know some people are constructing their own rebreathers, but I'm sure most divers have to buy their gear. What I'd like to have is an opportunity to get and give all kinds of diving instruction through clubs and federations that function on a non-profit basis. So, to us raised in an environment where training is the only part of diving that doesn't necessarily make your bank account go anorectic, it seems to be hard to accept that those days are over. Luckily though, here in Finland the industry is rather small, and everybody knows everybody. After having talked to people in the sportdivers federation and in the industry, I know that they are working on co-operational nitrox training with IANTD franchise firm, and developing CMAS tech-diving training program. All this seems to be going rather smoothly, which in my opinion is very good for both business and it's clients, us divers. Maybe it is possible to find a way in between hard-core business and club-based training programs. After reading today's messages, it seems that in the UK at least this process is well under way. I'm sorry for such a lengthy message. Donning my asbesthos gear while clicking "send". Good dives, Juha
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