Originally Posted by
Startrek3
Thanks for the heads up, Stuff you, have highlighted something that the chap in 22 Gp I spoke to failed to mention. Although I must admit I'm not sure the OU was what said individual had in mind. I wonder if the shortened course will still attract the same level of credits?
As you are being so helpful, stuff you, could also perhaps explain what exactly you mean by drivel? The fact that the RAF has adopted the mantra 'thinking to win', the fact that the new course was an academic improvement over the old course or the fact that DefAc DS thought that army and navy studes were often better placed to rise to the challenge of continued academic development than their RAF counterparts?
They were wrong.
The RAF students more than held their own and it was the RN who were most concerned about the overall quality of their students; this contributed to (but was far from the only factor in) a redesign of what was then the ISC and its becoming the ICSC (Maritime).
The RAF students often won (and still do) the end of course prizes open to students from all three services and a respectable number - more, from memory, than from the other two services - have gone on to undertake MPhils [at least two of whom are members of PPrune] and embark upon PhDs [at least one lurking member of PPrune].
The OU may be a better bet than other institutions; as many RN and Army officers have discovered, having the time to take their credits forward is difficult. Credits are 'lifed' by most accrediting universities, and if the degree is not completed within a certain period, the credits from RMAS/Dartmouth can be lost. Much of the learning undertaken for the degree (if the poor JO in any of the services has the time) has to be done at distance nowadays - time spent on PPrune being put aside for online debating on the relevant degree programme's internet fora, etc.
One of the points to bear in mind about RAFC is that an awful lot of the OCdts already possess a degree and the RAF view has been that some of the material covered at IOT can be left until afterwards (for instance on JOD1); while credits are a useful thing to have upon completion of IOT for DE officers, the critical point - as ever - was that broader issues than the possibility of gaining credits for a BA drove developments (whether rightly or wrongly is a separate debate).
I don't know what the shortened course will lose exactly, but if the academic content meets the requirements in terms of contact and study hours as laid down under an international standard (the Bologna process), then the credits will not be affected; if the hours drop, then the number of credits will fall. Reduction in IOT length may simply mean that another module has to be done towards the degree.
We now return you to some much more interesting observations...