Quote:
| Originally Posted by divingniknaks Just a thought here.
I know and accept why DIR-F is now a Pass / Fail course, but a lot of the angst would be removed if it went back to being a workshop.
At that point people would IMHO be more prepared to "turn up" and "learn", without the perceived risk of "failure or Provisional".
That doesn't get round the fact that, the reasoning was people turning up ill prepared for T1 or C1.
Maybe a move back to a workshop, but an "evaluation" put into T1 and C1 might work ?
My 2p (as Clare says, it's worth what you pay for it) |
Yeah, you raise a very valid point but the problem is that I do honestly think that a lot of the pressure of passing DIR-F is put upon the candidates by the candidates themselves. If they were to approach the course with the right attitude - that is, turn up and learn as much as you can rather than getting preoccupied with getting a 'pass' - I honestly think that many would get a lot more out of it.
The other problem is one of marketing. The fact is, students like to get plastic cards out of the courses they've paid for. Just like at the PADI system - it practically invented the card collecting diver mentality! GUE know all too well that unless a customer feels like they get something at the end of it, many will be less likely to sign up. I know that may not sound particularly 'DIR' but let's be realistic here - GUE isn't just about turning out 'sorted' divers... they wanna make money too! (shock! horror!).
The other issue is that GUE needs to ensure that students who are accepted onto a Tech-1 or Cave-1 course have achieved at least a basic level of in-water competency *before* they turn up for their first day of tech or cave training. Having a skills eval on the first day (which, to be honest, all course have already) is ok but it does kinda cause proceedings to grind to a halt if the student isn't up to scratch. A certain level of 'rustiness' is easy to fix but being a complete numpty in the water isn't a good way to start a Tech-1 course...