06/29/2026
TL:DR Regardless of what the standards are, don’t be stupid and raise the price if you gotta.
There has been a lot of discussion around training standards for certifying agencies in the last week. This is one of those things where I should probably say nothing but I’m going to. Standards are a baseline. They are the minimum. That minimum is supposed to mean that a diver can safely execute the things they’re training to do. It DOES NOT mean that they will engage in safe habits post training nor make them immune from mishap. It doesn’t even really mean they’ll be great at diving. It means they were able to do what you were training them to do safely. It’s a C. Some people will get Bs and As but Cs pass too.
I was taught that adhering to standards gave a defensible legal position but not an invincible one. Standards didn’t mean ignore common sense. If the conditions are poor, abort. If it’s a class you don’t teach regularly, remove other factors that can cause problems including reducing the class size. If the student doesn’t appear up to it or struggling, call it a day and regroup. Pressing your luck to get the X and using standards as a shield has never been the MO of myself or the dive pros that I have worked with nor should it ever be.
As to making standards more stringent, the industry needs to decide if it wants a consistent product or an exceptional product. When I was in the Navy the Navy’s aviation grading was subjective. Unsat, below avg, average, above average. Then if you were in the bottom 10% of passing grades you were considered marginal and evaluated for continuation. There was variability between instructors on grading but we produced an exceptional product that took far longer than our Air Force counterparts. The Air Force system was more structured and people came out the other in at a regular cadence. Were they as good of pilots rolling into type model training? Up for debate. But that’s what’s at play here. Is good enough good enough?
The reality is most people are going to dive once or twice a year and there is a fiscal component as well. Harder standards mean longer classes. Open water, the only class most people take is already a loss leader. Longer classes means upping the price which means increasing the barrier to entry in an already low margins environment. While this isn’t about money it is a factor. Is someone who’s going once or twice a year, most people, going to pay say 30% more for a 10 day class? These are made up numbers but There goes your vacation based classes and probably a number of domestic ones. I know most of this discussion lately centers around OW training but standards encompass more than that. To me, as an independent instructor that works with shops on demand there is a simple solution regardless of what the agencies do.
Standards are the starting place. I will teach what is required with the limitations required, in the gear required. But MY name is on that card. If I don’t like what I’m seeing out of a student’s performance I’m not certifying them. That’s not giving up on them, unless they give up. It making sure they are safe and I’m not developing a reputation of incompetent instruction. If I think the class is too big, I’ll either not teach it or get a DM. If there were problems in confined water I’ll adjust things during checkout to avoid problems. I’m also not putting a student into a scenario I wouldn’t want to have to explain to my momma. Not theirs, MINE. If I think she’d ask me hard questions about why I did that and I don’t have good answers then we’re doing something else. I always do a conditions recon before we get started and if it’s bad or bad for what we’re supposed to do it’s a no go.
Negligence by the few is what got us here. But you can’t legislate negligence away, you can only hold people accountable for it. To wit, as instructors just don’t be negligent. It’s better to say not today than it is to be filling out the worst kind of paperwork.
