Has not attitude towards fitness always played a part in an annual appraisal?
No, came in round about 1991 - shortly after a review of the PTI branch under ‘Options for Change’ - not that I'm a big conspiracy theorist you understand
Must admit I liked your comparison/rant with those who do education during work time.
My suggestion is thus:
An RAFET - each year members of the RAF will be tested to see if they are educationally fit to continue their service, naturally, following the precedent of the Fitness test it will be irrelevant to their operational role. Starting off gently there will be a mandatory requirement for all servicemen and women to achieve at least a ‘C’ grade pass in a GCSE subject each year. Remedial night-school and daytime classes will be compulsory – any serviceman that fails to show general improvement in Latin irregular verbs over a three year period will be booted out the service regardless of their operational capabilities. Any complaints concerning this policy will be ignored and those responsible will be punished for ‘thought crime’ through use of the Annual Reporting System
Standards will be continuously monitored and revised with the eventual aim of providing the RAF with a pool of bright alert PhDs that can be employed at a moment’s notice around the world to engage the enemy in a series of high-level debates and discussions that would be beyond the capacities of current service personnel.
There will be no excuse for non compliance with the standards required for the RAFET – no extra time away from the workplace will be provided and all revision will be carried out in the service member’s free time as he/she should be constantly exercising his/her mental alertness within the standards required for the leaner, better educated Royal Air Force. Operational tours are to be arranged around the RAFET and back-to-back tours will provide no exemptions.
Promotion in all branches in future will depend on RAFET results rather than the current arbitrary system of promoting people who are actually any good at their job.
An example of this would be the promotion ban to be enforced on the RAF Regiment trade SAC/Cpl until such time as individuals are able succinctly explain Einstein’s Theory of Relativity in Russian within a delineated time scale which will be age/sex related.