Experience

[diverdan]

Hi

Just back from the Barrier Reef where my youngest done his first two dives. Anyway back to the new thread. While I was on a liveaboard on the reef I was amazed at the dive company putting young inexperienced peoplle forward for rescue diver and divemaster training. Some had only carried out 20 odd dives. Surely there must be an experience / number of dives criteria etc before PADI allow trainees to enroll on courses.

[chrisch]

For rescue diver there is, IIRC, about a 20 dive requirement. IMO that is fine - this is teaching you to be a better diver.

For DM its only 20 logged (just checked on the W3). DM is a supervisory role and requires some experience to be done well. Whether that can be achieved in 20odd dives I doubt.

No dive centre that I know of would employ a DM with so few dives. However, it is maybe the start of an internment that would develop the diver. Let's be honest PADI DM is not really much of a qual is it? FWIW I think it should be 100 dives, but then I haven't had 20 years of diver training experience like PADI have. Furthermore - again being honest - one can have 1500 logged dives and still no real experience if they are all 10m dives in the Red Sea....

The PADI system makes its money out of diver training and is often critisised for letting people into instructor courses before they have had sufficient experience. However, it doesn't seem to be a real world problem judging by the PADI trained divers one meets all around the world. Look at driving instruction as an analogy - I know a good few driving instructors that I wouldn't lend my car to....

Chris

[ratcliffe]

Although the requirement for DM is only 20 dives, I do know a couple of places where they've taken it upon themselves to make it 50 before the qualification is actually handed out, which I think is a good idea.

[rooster]

Candidates can enrol on the DM course after 20 dives, but cannot certify as a DM until they have 60 qualifying logged dives.

60 dives is the minimum PADI requirement, although schools may 'pad' the course with extra dives until they feel students are ready to pass.

Regards




Roy

[Lazlo]

Although you can start DM after your rescue, you can't be certified as a PADI DM until you've done 60 dives. And as with ALL courses, the instructor can and should exercise discretion about qualifying a diver - i.e. can always refuse even if all performance requirements are met.

[chrisch]

Originally Posted by rooster

Candidates can enrol on the DM course after 20 dives, but cannot certify as a DM until they have 60 qualifying logged dives.

Thanks for the clarification Roy - that makes a lot of sense within the internment system. Its been 10 years since I worked in the industry but I think this is the idea of the "new" career development thing that PADI have introduced?

Chris