ABOUT USEuropean Association of Professional Snowsport Instructors - EAPSI
Transparency | Accountability Reliability | Professionalism | Passion EAPSI is a based on a ground-breaking new philosophy in professional snowsports instruction which harnesses the innovations of online video to create a totally transparent, completely open system of snowsports instructor qualifications that is accessible to everyone.
EAPSI has been created by passionate instructors with decades of experience and qualifications in many countries national systems including: CASI (Canadian Association of Snowboard Instructors), CSIA (Canadian Ski Instructors' Alliance), NZSIA (New Zealand Snowsports Instructors' Alliance), SBINZ (Snowboard Instruction New Zealand), BASI (British Association of Snowsport Instructors), ESF (Ecole de Ski Francais),PSIA - AASI (Professional Ski Instructors of America - American Association of Snowboard Instructors) and PZN (Polski Związek Narciarski (Polish Ski Federation).
With this diverse background of knowledge and experience in global snowsports qualifications EAPSI has taken the best elements of the various systems and combined them together to create a simple, transparent 3 tier system- EAPSI levels 1,2 and 3 for both skiing and snowboarding respectively.
Why Do We Need A New Approach?
Up until now the calibration of qualifications throughout the various bodies has been highly based on the personal opinions and perspectives of whichever trainer/ evaluator happened to take a group for their exams- regardless of which system. The evaluators, although always highly experienced and well qualified are constantly having to adapt their own understanding of where "The Standard" lies depending on the ever-changing information which comes from the ever-changing bureaucrats in the Head Offices of the various organisations creating a maze of potential pitfalls which so often has led to people missing out on qualifications with a "harsh" evaluator only to ski or board with someone who was evaluated with a "soft" evaluator and passed who clearly wasn't at their own level leading to understandable feelings of betrayal and injustice from the system in which they invested so much time, effort and money. In the worst case scenarios it has been clear that favouritism and bias has reared its ugly head where people with "cozy" relationships with evaluators have gained top level qualification ahead of other more skilled and experienced snowsports professionals.
The Solution
The solution we have created is a freely accessible system with the clearest elements which must be completed for each level of qualification in both technical and teaching aspects of skiing and snowboarding respectively. Each element must be filmed and uploaded to a video sharing site (such as Youtube). By having concise video profiles, all EAPSI qualified instructors are open to the scrutiny of anyone who wishes to view them. The video profiles are also perfect for a modern approach to employment where employers can view potential new instructors in action and not have to rely on just written text about the abilities of their hopeful new recruits. |
