Oh FFS! We had a 24-week course that was very effective just 15 years ago when I left the DIOT staff. It was reformed into a 33-week course (although 2 of those weeks are inter-term leave periods, I believe) to expand the military doctrine knowledge of the officer cadets and introduce rigorous academic learning supported by KCL - thus bringing it more into line with the RN and the Army. Those two aspects were planned to be provided through-life as one's career developed and higher rank ensued, thereby preparing better and earlier RAF officers (like their counterparts in the other two services) for higher command in Joint appointments. Sound logic even if there were slight flaws in the philosophy espoused by the man (a wg cdr educator) who wrote and implemented the paper! With a drop off in recruitment requirements over the past few years and rather too many pilots in the pipeline (that resulted in a number of u/t pilot redundancies about 5 years ago) the course was successful if somewhat underutilized. Recruiting is now back on the rise and there is, it seems if you are to believe the Times article, a shortage of pilots.
So what does the RAF decide to do - reverse the whole process as a matter of expediency! Well b**ger me!
When will we ever learn! How many times have we run a redundancy scheme and then realized that the sums are wrong, or we have lost our middle management experience or...
So let's reverse the IOT (sorry OACTU now) course back to what it was when I left my post in 2000 (it actually changed to 33 weeks in about 2006) and throw the baby out with the bath water yet again!
Oh FFS!
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