Royal Air Force personnel to train at Portsmouth and Cranfield

[BEagle]

From the BBC:

BBC News - Royal Air Force personnel to train at Portsmouth and Cranfield (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-19474022)

"The universities will give initial officer training and senior officer development to 3,700 personnel a year.

Officers will continue to receive in-house training at RAF Cranwell in Lincolnshire."

:confused:

[Dan Winterland]

I always thought IOT was a bit like a Boy's Scout camp. Perhaps Gilwell Park would be more appropriate.





(Gillwell Park is the Scouts HQ for those who don't know).

[sisemen]

Portsmouth Business School dean Professor Gioia Pescetto said: "We have respect for what the RAF does and is aiming to do and we fully expect this to be a real partnership

Well, that's officer training turning to a bag of **** then. Hands up those who thought that standards couldn't go any lower. :yuk:

[Melchett01]

I'm assuming that IOT will still be at Cranwell and that this is just a (nother) badly phrased article, which instead refers to the provision of academic support to IOT by outside agencies. If so, what happened to KCL who I thought were responsible for the academics phase of IOT?

If KCL deliver the academics and Cranfield is renowned in its own right for its business courses, I struggle to see what Portsmouth will bring. That we should now be teaching people business rather than leadership, is however, another thing entirely.

[BEagle]

I always thought IOT was a bit like a Boy's Scout camp.

At least we were spared the being-buggered-by-Akela ritual at Cranwell....:ooh:

Does this really mean that the RAF is no longer going to train its own officers? Or is it, as I sincerely hope, simply bolleaux reporting by the Beeb?

That whirring noise is probably Trenchard spinning in his grave.......

'University of Portsmouth Business School' - that should mean that everyone graduates fluent in biz-speak wanque-word bolleauxology, able to prattle about 'overarching objectivity' and 'blue sea thought' whilst 'imagineering' their 'battle rhythm'.....:yuk:

[althenick]

'University of Portsmouth Business School' - that should mean that everyone graduates fluent in biz-speak wanque-word bolleauxology, able to prattle about 'overarching objectivity' and 'blue sea thought' whilst 'imagineering' their 'battle rhythm'.....

My brother - Recently retired Chief Tech - Was spouting such ****e 3 years before he left. Sadly the newbies shall learn even more :yuk:

[NutLoose]

If God was going to give the World an enema, he'd stick the tube in Cranfield.

[Could be the last?]

There is no story here. The contract was put out and KCL, the current academic provider, was replaced by Cranfield/Portsmouth. No big deal; although, I think Portsmouth are on a very steep curve!

[salad-dodger]

The University of Portsmouth. Says it all really!

S-D

[Melchett01]

There is no story here. The contract was put out and KCL, the current academic provider, was replaced by Cranfield/Portsmouth. No big deal; although, I think Portsmouth re on a very steep curve!

Actually, it's a rather important story. KCL are world renowned and have a specialist department in War Studies with some world experts working there. They are one of the best universities in the country, probably in Europe and don't do too badly in a global context. According to the complete University Guide, Portsmouth ranks 77th and at its highest managed to make mid-50s in the UK rankings.

Whereas KCL brought international expertise in its War Studies department, a quick look at the Portsmouth website suggests it has limited if any experience in this area, although they do offer courses in Leadership. But funny old thing, isn't that what IOT was designed to provide in itself? I really can't see what Portsmouth will bring to enhance the RAF's academic or leadership package, or for that matter reputation.

But then again, a quick look across many of the universities partnering the RAF these days shows them to be some of the more modern, or shall I say distinctly average institutions (MBA from Stafford anyone?). Maybe it is an indication of how far the RAF has fallen in recent years that the top flight institutions don't see that partnering up with Defence will do anything for their own prestige. Frankly this just looks like another way of saving money regardless of the output and no doubt there will be a hard sell as both institutions try to rope cadets into forking out for some formal qualification for just a few extra modules work.

[SOSL]

I thought Cranfield had been running RMCS Shrivenham undergraduate degrees and the Advanced Staff College MDA (also at Shrivenham) for years.

Rgds SOS

[Could be the last?]

Melchette,

What did you expect? Maybe KCL's bid should have been more competitive! besides, most of the current academics will cut across to the new provider anyway! Or..........

[Pontius Navigator]

I once put forward a suggestion, not to the RAF I hasten to add who would probably have ignored it. I got a response from th etop man, an American,

"That is exactly the sort of blue sky thinking outside the box that we need."

My suggestionn was then quietly ignored and filed in the "not invented here" box.

[salad-dodger]

Frankly this just looks like another way of saving money regardless of the output and no doubt there will be a hard sell as both institutions try to rope cadets into forking out for some worthless formal qualification for just a few extra modules work.
sounds like we've learnt our cynicism in the same way Melchett. I suspect that there's more than a hint of truth in what you say.

S-D

[lightningmate]

Usual MOD Policy surely, cheapest is the best :ugh:

lm

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Relying on my IOT training and the fantastic mentorship I got in the RAF, I have been fixing management problems at every civvy place I have worked in, frequently caused by MBAs. The comment I always get is:

"That's brilliant, where did you learn that?"

and I was a long way short of the best administrator amongst my colleagues in the RAF, as was.



This really is the final straw.....

[Archimedes]

The King's contract was operated by a wing of the Defence Studies Department (which does the academic provision for the Staff College courses), rather than War Studies. When the specification for the latest iteration of the contract was put out, King's decided not to pursue their interest further (at least according to the email I got about it).

AIUI, couple of other universities expressed interest, but also chose not to bid, again because of certain aspects of the contract (no blame attached to any side - the RAF has certain outcomes it wants, and in the grand scheme of things, universities have similar desires, and if the two don't match up, then the Universities don't bid).

As CBtL suggests, the majority of the King's academics will simply become Portsmouth academics. The team includes a former Buccaneer nav and the new head of the department - if it's the person I've been told it is - is also ex-aircrew (Phantom & F3, if memory serves, but I honestly can't recall). You're not going to see people with fancy designer specs turning up and spouting business-speak unless either of them has been dropped on their head from a great height recently (and in the case of the ex-Bucc mate, that'd have had to be after 1230 today, when I last spoke with him...)

There is, in fact, a growing interest amongst the Russell Group universities in partnering with defence, but they have certain things that they feel they need to do to [business speak] operationalise their intended strategic outcomes for general development and the Research Evaluation Framework [\business speak] which means that some contracts won't attract a bid from them, even if there is initial interest.

[chopper2004]

Spubds like a copy of the US ROTC way whereby a good significant amount of officers receive their commission bar the USMC and I think the USCG

[Grimweasel]

Cranfield is a much better respected university in my view. Having been applying/interviewing for jobs of late, many companies are impressed with the MBA from Cranfield. I can't imagine an MBA or MA from Portsmouth will have the same 'clout'? PS. Thanks for the £25K plus resettlement qualification !! :D

[TomJoad]

Wait,, there was an academic element of IOT !

[STANDTO]

Surely the answer is, in these financially chastened times, to have one, tri-service college delivering a 6 months core IOT, with a 3 month service specific add on?

[Biggus]

STANDTO,

I think that's been tried before. I seem to remember that the RN said "that's fine by us, but it needs to be by the coast some we can do some boat type stuff", and the RAF said "that's fine by us, but it needs to have a 6,000ft runway", I'm not sure what the Army said, probably something along the lines of being able to fire guns....

However, this is all from memory, rumour, as usual someone out there will correct me shortly!!

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Tri-Service IOT??
I think the Services have too many differences in the qualities required from their junior officers for this to work.

Nevermind a Naval Officer's comment to me that
"The Air Force doesn't have traditions, it has habits - and bad ones at that!".

I think he had a point.

The academic element of IOT was brilliant, especially the office simulator. I haven't met an MBA who knows the faintest about filing, and without exception (in my experience) they are hated by their admin assistants as a result. Add 4 months as an OC GD, 4 months Ops Officer and 4 months as an ADC (my experience) and you have an excellent idea about how admin should work.

[Melchett01]

sounds like we've learnt our cynicism in the same way Melchett. I suspect that there's more than a hint of truth in what you say.

S-D

Quite possibly. I went through IOT on the back of completing a post-grad Masters, only to get to Sleaford Tech to find they were pushing some sort of knock-off qualification in Leadership Studies sponsored by Exeter. It was apparently based on accreditation of prior learning, but having put a year's solid graft in, I was less than impressed to hear that a Masters was on offer for 6 months traipsing round the North Airfield with a pine-pole and a couple of extra essays. If you didn't want to do the essays, you could fork out £80 for a certificate, which to my mind was blatant profiteering - how much for a piece of decent paper, the ink to print them and the envelope and stamp? Coupled with the hard sell from the DIOT staff at the time, it made me even more wary in my thinking that there was some dodgy deal going on. For some reason, I'm having a sense of deja vue now.

[Widger]

Well I am sure Steliios, Willy, Michael and Richard will be very impressed with those bits of paper when the time comes........................................

[HTB]

Your'e not geting with the program guys; here's the answer:

At the end of the day, the bottom line is that we need a level playing field where the goalposts don’t move, to enable us think outside the box in a blue sky way while running it up the flagpole to see who salutes, having woken up to smell the coffee. So you can see that the key to imagineering is based on optioneering the overarching interoperability requirements to provide a synergistic approach, thus avoiding a paradigm shift, resulting in a plus for all stakeholders; and that’s how to bring a lot of value to the table going forward…:cool:

Mister B

[Courtney Mil]

Excellent, Mr B.

[tucumseh]

Portsmouth University have been training MoD staff for many years. But not very well.

Last time I was there, in 1996, they produced a Lt Col to give a one hour talk on "practical project management".

He lasted 2 minutes. Turned out his only experience was "managing" a £250k project (in his current post), for which he was given an entire project team. There were people there who managed Cat A (£400M+) programmes on their own. After years of doing such training, PU regarded him as an expert, which tells you what they knew about MoD.

[Party Animal]

Mr B,

Did you socialise your words before posting?

;)

P.S. Loved the coherency of your holistic approach to reach the desired effect!!

[HTB]

Thanks PA

It feels good te be a valued member of a team; and remember, "there is no 'I' in team".

To answer your question:

Not really, it was more a value-added proposition to maximize customer satisfaction and coming up with a win-win situation where we under-promise and over-deliver.:p


Mister B

[Widger]

I prefer to move the hymnsheets so we can all sing from the same goalposts

[Melchett01]

and remember, "there is no 'I' in team"

No, but there is a 'ME'.

And as for your "value-added proposition to maximize customer satisfaction", I challenge you Sir, to cease and desist trying to add value and instead concentrate on getting the basics right first! ;)

[HTB]

Melchie old bean

There is a tame mate in team:ok:

Good of you to touch base to keep the deliverables focussed on the outcome in order to leverage resources; but you’re right, we need to reboot and tear down the silos, contemporise the portfolio and rediscover the core competencies.

Must try harder, especially as I forgot about that damn Hymn sheet:{.


Mister B

[airborne_artist]

But how much granularity do we have on all this? ;)

[Party Animal]

Just need to mention rustication, in the round and outputs and I think that's a full house.

For anyone who left the RAF before 2000, you may think some of the above comments are off the wall. Sadly, bullsh1t bingo is the reality of the day and it seems a pre requisite for promotion.

:*

[HTB]

PA

Don't forget across the piece, these phrases are use widely by commercial and public bodies as well the military; my previous employer was particularly fond of adding such meaningless technical jargon to various "toolkits/toolboxes".

Mister B

[Easy Street]

In the case of Stafford, the offering of accreditation for military courses can be attributed to an ex-RAF Training Officer who went to work for the university and set up the links. It is a thinly-veiled money-making exercise, with the ex Trg Off and hence the uni knowing full well that there are pots of SLC and ELC cash out there to be garnered with promises of MBAs, MAs etc, and lots of service personnel keen to get something concrete to show for their experience.

What no-one ever seems to mention when these schemes are plugged at Shrivenham, Cranwell etc is that the qualifications are worth sh*t. It's all about the letters, though, for many - especially since in the last 15 years or so the RAF has seemingly preferred non-graduate officer entrants, seeing how they give more years of enthusiastic productive service before getting distracted by wives, kids etc. Some of this lesser-educated crowd find their way to Sqn Ldr or Wg Cdr rank (somehow :E) and then develop an unseemly post-nominal envy, figuring that they need a degree to compete with their graduate rivals for upper-echelon places. Then they rush to get an MBA, MA, or even more uselessly an MDA, whilst those with proper degrees look on bemused as to how JOCC could possibly count towards anything!

Exceptions to this include the ACSC MA, which is a fair reward for a very intensive course (importantly, from a decent university in KCL), and the various Fellowship schemes, which are actually proper academic courses at proper universities. Stafford, Portsmouth, Cranfield etc - I wouldn't touch with a bargepole.

[Finnpog]

There is no I in team

But there is A ME

For pithy comebacks, you can always point out that whilst the above might be true there is a U in C*nt.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Post Nominal Letters

Monty Python - Cosmetic Surgery - YouTube

(posted by a man with more letters after his name than in his name. Sorry, not my fault. An old boss insisted my joining as many Institutes as possible was a good idea.)

[Melchett01]

EasyStreet,

It is re-assuring to know that I'm not on my own in thinking that academic excellence and elitism isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Then they rush to get an MBA, MA, or even more uselessly an MDA, whilst those with proper degrees look on bemused as to how JOCC could possibly count towards anything!

I had that very thought myself. I had a look at the Stafford MBA having had it rammed down our throat at ICSC and frankly was horrified by the scheme they were peddling. If I were an employer looking to take some one on with an MBA, I would expect them to have concrete experience backed up with a reputable qualification.

Frankly, my operational experience well qualifies me in hostile takeovers, but not an awful lot else. But when I looked at just how many modules I could skip through my prior experience, I actually thought I would be getting a MBA under false pretences. I had took do some research to find out what some of the modules were actually about, let alone be able to put what they teach in to practice without having done them. Surely that can't be right? I can see the day coming when someone gains a job on the back of one of these qualifications, gets found to be lacking very quickly and the employer takes serious umbrage.

As you rightly say, a thinly disguised money-making exercise pandering to those who see only a bottom line and target people who joined up straight from school.

[Widger]

having been a strawberry mivvy for just over a year now and a non-graduate (supplementary list shag), I would contend, from my limited experience, that what counts most is professional experience (Pilot, Nav, ATC,Engineer) backed up with something else. That something else, in my very humble opinion, should be a language. If you are able to speak, French, German, Italian, Spanish etc, then the world is your oyster. Being a native English speaker, you already have an advantage in that most aviation regulations etc are written in English.

Forget Shriv, Stafford or Pompey. Get yourself an exchange, learn a European language and you will never regret it!

[Biggus]

I would have thought that, as a general principle, students should treat anything given a "hard sell" by DIOT staff with a large degree of skepticism!

[The Unknown Stuntman]

I never thought I'd drag this moniker out of retirement, but here goes....

There is only one reason why KCL will not be providing the academic input into IOT - the so-called (and self confessed/obsessed) 'Dean'.

The rest of the KCL lecturers were a wonderful bunch of well-read, enthusiastic and engaging people who is was apleasure to work alongside; however, the 'Dean'! Well, I'm sure you can all read between the lines and smell a rant.

I hope that (as others have suggested) they are all able to cross-deck to the new Uni. As for his 'Deanship'........

[muppetofthenorth]

I really looked forward to all the KCL segments of the IOT course, they were well thoughtout, well delivered and [almost] all of the lecturers were very engaging. Would be a shame for future studes to miss out on that. IOT shouldn't solely be about beastings by the PTIs and jumping around in the mud with the Reg.

[Archimedes]

I never thought I'd drag this moniker out of retirement, but here goes....

There is only one reason why KCL will not be providing the academic input into IOT - the so-called (and self confessed/obsessed) 'Dean'.

The rest of the KCL lecturers were a wonderful bunch of well-read, enthusiastic and engaging people who is was apleasure to work alongside; however, the 'Dean'! Well, I'm sure you can all read between the lines and smell a rant.

I hope that (as others have suggested) they are all able to cross-deck to the new Uni. As for his 'Deanship'........

The ones who want to cross-deck are cross-decking. A couple are thinking about staying with 'mother'. The Dean to whom you refer is no longer the Dean; hasn't been since before Christmas & isn't anything to do with KCL any more.

[Melchett01]

The ones who want to cross-deck are cross-decking. A couple are thinking about staying with 'mother'. The Dean to whom you refer is no longer the Dean; hasn't been since before Christmas & isn't anything to do with KCL any more.

It's good to hear that at least some of the talent will be staying, but it doesn't change the fact that KCL was still a world leading institution, with access right at the heart of London and it's various think tanks and Whitehall. But Portsmouth is still an ex-Polytechnic and as many of these ex-Polys are probably more suited to practical subjects than rigorous academic debate and study. And like it or not, but that background and associated institutional policies and ways of doing things will eventually filter through to the output regardless of how many academics come across.

[iRaven]

There are MBAs and there are MBAs, just are there are for BSc or BA - depends on what they are in and where you studied them. However, having a degree or Masters is better than nothing at all - it might be the thing that gets you to interview when not having one won't! So don't get all priggish about ex-Polytechnics and establishments with a lower reputation than the normal "red brick" Universities. Be happy that these schemes recognise some of our efforts and make it easier for military types to get a qualification that will attract an interview - you could be an Oxbridge Professor but still come over as a d!ck in the interview and be useless at work because you have no common sense!!! :eek:

However, I do believe that academia is a bit of a self licking lollypop in certain areas; almost as bad as some of the "management speak" exhibited here. So being a graduate of the "University of Service Life" should not be over looked.

iRaven