I know it may be viewed as comparing apples with oranges, but the RAF has had similiar issues in the past. Our basic cse (I suppose the nearest equivalent is aerodrome and approach radar) takes about 20 weeks or so, this was extended from 16 weeks. Failure rate is about 35% with some of those people being recoursed to give an overall pass rate of about 70-75%. Of those that successfully graduate, a very small percentage (about 1%) fail to validate at unit.
Lessons we have learnt:
We treat the whole course as a training environment
and an extended aptitude test. Spending a couple of days at Cranwell (or the like) playing fancy 'games' (sorry 'aptitude tests') with computers just doesn't accurately reflect the latent skill sets required.
You can teach a monkey to control if you allocate enough time/money. One of our considerations is "How quickly can this individual learn?". Quite important when considering the training burden at units.
Instructors need to be properly motivated. You can have 100% bums on seats but if they don't give 100% effort you will have problems.
Students need to be properly motivated. Salary is not a driver in the military. That said, I cannot recall a poorly motivated student in all my time in the RAF.
Units form part of the training system. I know things are slightly different in the civil world but we do not graduate qualified controllers, we graduate people who we think will reach the required standard at an operational unit. If the training systems are not joined-up then there will be problems.
It is inexcusable to graduate someone and then make him/her sit in the wings for months before cutting their teeth. SATCOs are under remit to commence radar training at unit within 3 months of graduation. I have seen people struggle for their whole career because they spent the first 18 months of their controlling life on talkdown. Trying to recollect a little over 150hrs of total radar simulator time after 6 months or so is just asking too much. Consequently, the school/college needs to be able to cope with customer demand in a timely fashion.
Good luck to anyone at Hurn, I certainly would want to go through the machine!!
