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To: irvine!eng1!@bea1.opal.com
Subject: Re: Courses, club or business?
From: "JUHA FLINKMAN" <flinkman@fi*.fi*>
Cc: techdiver@opal.com
Date: Wed, 5 Apr 1995 10:03:39 +0200
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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