PADI OWD course duration?

Hi everybody!

A quick question if You please.

How long does a PADI OWD course last in Your dive centre / resort?

How many days for knowledge development, confined water dives and how many for open water dives.

I know about the standards PADI has written, but I'm interested how long does one class last when You conduct it? Do You prefer weekends or evenings in the middle of the week for working students / customers.

Cheers

Karel

Hi Karel,

There are heaps of different options depending on whether someone does e-learning i.e. knowledge development in their own time, face to face lectures or reads the manual and watches the video in their own time then comes in for the practical sections, quizzes and final exam.

Courses with good students and small numbers can be completed in two or three days, but generally courses take 3-4 days. I used to run courses over two weekends, certify them after the third day and then take them for two 'pleasure' dives and BBQ on the forth day so that students actually realised why they had completed the course in the first place. I also run mid week courses with the same format for four days and also an eve course where it was run over three evenings to complete knowledge and pool and one weekend of diving with a day in place when they could come back and complete 2 more dives with myself.

Jon

I used to do MWMW evenings 4 hours each for a total of 16 hours for everything except open water dives. I would also teach weekend classes; friday evening, all day Saturday and most of Sunday.

Actual length of the classes varied considerably depending on class size and ability/preparation of the students. Let me emphasize the word considerably. Sometimes my evening classes would end very late.

To be honest, I started preferring the weekend classes. More continuity. Fewer before and after class time on my part. People complain about cramming it into one weekend, but if you spend the same amount of time in total, it's actually better to do it in one weekend. If you taught four classes over six months, each class would include to re-teaching the previous class. That's what happens anytime you spread it out.

Thanks for Your reply guys!

I now see I should of maybe written my question a bit more clearly. My main concern was about conducting knowledge and pool in one weekend - two long days alltogether 16 - 18 hours. I have allso had some minor negative feedback about rushing through the course and not giving students enough time to memorise what they have just learned before starting with new subjects.

Then again I belive about 80% of customers sign up for weekend courses - seems that's more convenient for most people because courses conducted on weekday evenings stay empty. Im not really comfortable with two-day-course myself either, but what else could I do but try the best with the given time?! Other diveclubs have allso announced theyr classes beeing hold on weekends so the local market is actually setting the bar :-(

I belive I got my answer from the replys above

Thanks again!!

Karel