If a person persues the PADI courses then it is a qualification recognised by international diving standards all over the world and although different to british diving, the british standard BESAC or something knows where you stand on their level.
Things have changed a bit then. BSAC (British Sub Aqua Club) didn't recognise the PADI (Professional Association Of Diving Instructors) standard at all at one stage, after a while they did, but if you were PADI qualified on a BSAC course you would be asked to do a qualifying dive before so that you could be assessed.
If one completes a bushcraft course, or even several, how is this provable as a qualification either nationally or internationally? Can I do several courses with some small company, lets make one up and call it `woodways` and then go to woodsmoke or woodlore and say "look ive done ten courses with these guys" it cost me thousands. are they still going to say "well this is useless we don't know what you know" Or is there an accredited standard to test you agaisnt?
lets face it ALL other outdoor persuits have this.
This is a question that some have tried to address, as far as instructors are concerned you can gain accreditation from Plumpton College to NCFE, this was an attempt to ensure that all instructors sang from a similar song sheet and had a good set of abilities. I believe that it was John Ryder who initially got this going.
Dave Watson of Woodland Survival Crafts set up courses where at the end you gain accreditation through OCNEMR (Open College Network East Midlands Region) which would be the equivalent of a GCSE.
I believe that there was an attempt to bring bushcraft knowledge and instruction under the wing of the NVQ side of life working through various grades from beginner upto instructor standard.
There are problems though with these standards as they don't always recognise experience and they don't neccesarily cover all aspects of bushcraft.
These qualifications could be classed as being basic apart from the NVQ which would have to have been proved over a period of time in a number of different aspects. All may have been worked for over a period of time, but it's like driving. You can be taught to pass the test or you can be taught to drive, there is a lot more involved in being able to drive.
Each school has their own standards, Woodlore, Woodland Survival Crafts, Bison Bushcraft, Bushcraft Expeditions, Survival School, Backwoods Survival, Woodsmoke, Footsteps of discovery, Dryad Bushcraft, Wildwise, Wild Live and Wholeland. Each school may hail from very different beginnings, either really having been taught on courses by their peers as a civilian or military or having just learnt over the years from friends and family or possibly a mixture.
This means that they will also instruct in a different manner and they will also instruct slightly different things in slightly different ways.
I had teachers at school who couldn't handle that I didn't do things in the expected way, they could handle that in Maths I didn't write out my workings out, I just used write the basic answer and the basic question. As far as they were concerned I was wrong. The answer was correct, but I was wrong nonetheless.
Now try equating that to bushcraft where there are so many ways of doing just one thing.
By setting basic standards you also start to kill off the diversity of methods and means of achieving a goal.
Either that or you have courses that do beginners of everything and then split the subject matter out into basic, advanced and instructor and to reach an instructor qualification you require to have achieved the advanced course in Water, Wild Foods, Shelter and Fire. If you then add bushcraft crafts and skills as added bonuses you all of a sudden have a lot of subject matter and many courses that will cost many hundreds / thousands of pounds to achieve.
The other thing is that any standard that was proposed would have to be set by someone totally independant of any School or by people that are selected from schools for their knowledge in a specialist subject by persons who are totally independant of any school or prejudice.
Nagual said:
I think that most Schools of survival would welcome such an endeavour, as it would set aside certain misgivings like the one you've mentioned, but the difficulty is making it happen in the first place. Another thought to consider is if such a control existed in the form of either an independent group or one that is self regulating, would no doubt cost something to set up and be a member of thus adding to the fees passed on to the customer?
Any independant legislative authority would require a payment to be part of it, courses would have to be assessed to insure that they have the required content for the level being instructed and that the level of instruction is what is required. Courses would infact become pretty much the same no matter who you went to.
In the long term this would probably bring down the insurance cost to the school, but it would add a considerable amount of courses to do and considerably more outlay by the customer.
