Industry Notes: Panacea or Panic?

June-July 1995

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.

Does certification save lives?

by Chris Gerow

Is certification a panacea? Will it improve the quality of instruc tion? Will it improve the safety of commercial sea kayaking? What are the statistics of the British certification system? Will the system degrade after our initial good intentions? What is the history of certification in other industries? There are some of the questions that plague me when the question of certification arises. These are also questions that need to have answers for before we submit to the 'inevitability' of certification.

People speak of the inevitability of certification, prefacing all of their pro certification statements with 'I don't believe in it myself but...', or 'we need certification to get insurance', or 'I need a way to make sure that my guides are competent'. The argument against certification is more than a philosophical stand against regulation; it is an argument for safe accountable programs and outfitters.

Safety is a motherhood issue. Any time the issue of safety is raised it is almost impossible to argue against the most conservative opinion. If you don't go along with the conservative opinion you can be seen as reckless or at least an iconoclastic throwback. There is an assumption that certification/regulation is a safer way to run the industry. Who can argue with that assumption? It has made the roads safer and protected us from bad food in restaurants. Certification becomes a necessity as a system grows beyond its ability to be self regulated. We happily admit that the industry is growing, so now we are faced with the certification issue. We are not being forced by accidents, bad practices, or bad PR. We are moving towards it because people are worried that it will be forced upon us, either by the need to get insurance or because of government regulation of our public lands. I feel that it is important to hold the certification proposal up to a bright light. We should scrutinize it to make sure that we are in fact going to bring in a safer, better program-a program that will bring more people to our doors. Let's assess the certification issue under the criteria of 'will more people die?' I feel that this is a criteria more valid than 'can I get insured?', or 'will I be responsible for the actions of my staff?' It has more to do with the clients' safety which is ultimately beneficial to the industry.

'Non-certification is our best chance of not killing people. Certification is our best chance of getting insurance.'

I realize that these are inflammatory statements but raise them to get us thinking. If certification was to be instituted now, while the industry is still in its infancy, we can be relatively assured that the certification system will be run by people who understand kayaking; people who understand that safety isn't a set of rules to be followed but rather a knowledge base upon which a paddler draws to make decisions based on intuition and experience; people who have been drawn to the business because of their love of the sport.

Certification can reduce personal responsibility of program directors for the marginal guide. Without certification the responsibility for a good safe program rests on the shoulders of the program director who must make the difficult decision to fire an unsafe guide because the responsibility will eventually rest with them. By instituting a certification program it will make it easier to not fire that marginal guide who is good with clients and works hard around the office. It will always be easier to keep that guide; to try to make them better, hope nothing really bad happens, and always keep in the back of your mind that 'at least they're certified so it won't be my neck in the noose'. It makes it easier to escape the responsibility of making an accurate assessment of your system. It takes the pressure off the administrator to monitor the system. Bad employees will still be culled but what about that marginal employee who may eventually take over the system? Let's face it, we may have a life change that removes us from the system. As the sport grows there will not be enough great paddlers out there to ensure that a certification program will be administered by people in the know.

Knowledge can be taught and tested but it can also be crammed for and forgotten. How many of us can remember the vagaries of The Taming of the Shrew we were tested on in school? Intuition and experience can only be achieved in a course that runs over an extended period of time with logged experience time and a proctored apprenticeship. How many outfitters would be willing to fit the bill for a system of this type? How many guides would be willing to commit that kind of training time to a seasonal job with only moderate financial remuneration?

A certification program that could be considered a realistic or achievable course length given these constraints would probably run 5-7 days. Time to learn the physical skills, get in a few practice scenarios and learn a little about managing clients. Would it then be associated with an official apprenticeship? How long as an assistant guide? Who would do the evaluation? Would it be done by the outfitter who has already put time and money into developing the new guide and serves to benefit from a favorable evaluation? Perhaps it would be done by an independent body, a government or existing body. Would this require funding that may help push the sport beyond the clients ability to pay? The realities of putting into place a system of certification that would improve the safety of sea kayaking instruction are staggering. Any other system would at best achieve the middle common denominator and may actually decrease safety.

Another sacred cow of the pro certification spokespeople is the need for insurance. Would the insurance companies really beat a path to our doors if we had sanctioned certification program? Upon first glance, the answer would appear to be yes. If there were a certifying body the system would be safe, there would be predictable levels of instruction and a standard to judge a program against. I've been told that in Britain the accident rate actually increased upon introduction of certification. Would the insurance companies, whose favour we are trying to carry, be as interested in insuring us if this was to be repeated here in North America?

There needs to be an investigation into these questions and some serious questioning of the realities of a certification program and its institution. At the TASK symposium a few years ago there was a round table discussion of certification. The lines were drawn roughly down the middle, mostly on what appeared to be visceral or instinctual reactions. One side could be described as feeling that certification was a valid response to the pressures on the industry as it continues to grow beyond the cottage industry it started as. The other side seemed to feel a reaction to regulation of an industry that they feel so close to. I think that the time has come to take a look at the certification issue and see if it is the answer to our problems or if it could possibly create more or different problems in our young and growing industry. I think that this is an area that we as guides need to find a position on so that we can be prepared when that dreaded time comes that we will be asked what we think.

Chris Gerow is an experinced kayak guide. He spent a number of year leading groups for NOLS (National Outdoor Leadership School) in Central America.