World Recreational Scuba Training Council

The World Recreational Scuba Training Council or (WRSTC) was founded in 1999 and is dedicated to creating minimum recreational diving training standards for the various scuba diving certification agencies across the world. The WRSTC restricts its membership to national or regional councils. These councils consist of individual training organizations who collectively represent at least 50% of the annual diver certifications in the member council's country or region. A national council is referred to as a RSTC (Recreational Scuba Training Council).

The most significant training organisations which are not members or the WRSTC or regional RSTCs are Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques (CMAS), National Association of Underwater Instructors (NAUI), British Sub-Aqua Club (BSAC), and International Association of Nitrox and Technical Divers (IANTD).

Criticism of the WRSTC

It should be noted that critics of the WRSTC maintain that these standards are not, in fact, a set of standards that all member organizations must live up to, but are, in reality, just a "worst common denominator" of the standards that had been already independently adopted by the member organizations. In other words, the WRSTC standards were "reverse engineered" to conform to what already existed, and in that respect, they are so low that they serve no useful purpose.

United States RSTC

The USA's RSTC is recognised as the ANSI Accredited Standards Developer (ASD) for the development of recreational diving instructional standards and standardizing other training related issues. The following agencies are currently members:

• IDEA - International Diving Educators Association
• PADI - Professional Association of Diving Instructors
• PDIC - The Professional Diving Instructors Corporation
• SDI - Scuba Diving International
• SSI - Scuba Schools International

NAUI's then (and current: 28 Dec 2011) Vice President Jed Livingston explained his position vis a vie NAUI rejoining the RSTC by saying:

Why doesn’t NAUI join the RSTC?

From time to time we are asked why we don’t rejoin the RSTC. In order to answer the question one must first ask a series of questions of why we would want to.

• Are we members of the ANSI Z375 Committee for industry standards development?
• Would rejoining the RSTC provide NAUI with any legitimacy or recognition that it doesn’t already possess?
• Would the RSTC gain legitimacy if NAUI were to rejoin?
• Would RSTC agree to utilize the legitimacy and recognition gained by NAUI’s rejoining to distinguish between legitimate certifications and others?

As one can see, rejoining RSTC would not be a fair bargain for NAUI Worldwide. We have repeatedly been invited to rejoin by the RSTC members and have responded that we don’t believe it would be worthwhile unless the RSTC agrees that non-RSTC organizations would not be recognized as legitimate certifying organizations. And we require that they agree to prepare and implement a marketing campaign to warn the public of other’s illegitimate training. Would this invite a legal challenge? Probably, but that is an effort that we believe would be worthwhile considering the alphabet soup of organizations now claiming to be the “fastest growing” or “largest galactic certifier in the universe.” And no one really expects the diving magazines to fact-check advertising claims. One, because its almost impossible and two–they’re in the business of selling advertising.

Reliable information about the diving industry is remarkably hard to obtain. Consider, the last audited study conducted by a third party was published in the fall of 2000. It reported U.S. retailer market share as follows: PADI, NAUI, and SSI, in the number one, two and three position respectively, hold 98.2% of retailer affiliations and all the other certifying agencies combined (of which there are twenty or so on any given day), 1.8% of retailers. Considering that NAUI also enjoys the largest training agency presence in colleges, universities and military academies and has in addition an extremely productive membership of independent Professional Educators, this report is great news for NAUI. The full report is available for purchase from DEMA.

So the next time you read that a particular agency claims to be a member of ANSI, which makes their dive training valid. Remember that ANSI only publishes the results of an industry consensus process in the form of a voluntary standard. It doesn’t bestow recognition. You have to earn that. Or, when someone writes that the RSTC industry standard requires such and such, know that’s true only if you’re one of the five RSTC member organizations. NAUI members will be working to meet their own higher requirements, and we will continue stand for Dive Safety Through Education.

External links

• WRSTC Official Site
• Richardson, D. (2000). "The RSTC medical statement and candidate screening model". South Pacific Underwater Medicine Society Journal 30 (4). ISSN 0813-1988. OCLC 16986801. http://archive.rubicon-foundation.org/5884. Retrieved 2008-05-01.