NVQ's

[JWatEGOS]

Does anybody know of any organisation offering NVQ's in the Flight Ops / ATC field of work? Have tried various searches over the net and local colleges but not had much joy.

Any ideas anyone?

[DK338]

The only organisation that does is the RAF. And as you are clearly involved with TG9 training with a handle like that you might want to start a review of the things and their value with a view to ditching them and follow the Techie route and concentrate on more worthwhile and commercially recognised qualifications like the BTEC.

They have no credibility outside in the real world and if you speak to anybody involved with commercial aviation, you will be advised to avoid them at all costs and head straight for the C&G/BTEC route.

About 18 months ago I contacted the organisation that was contracted to formulate these things and spoke to the individual responsible, who very kindly emailed to me all the syllabi and courses for my perusal. I was encouraged to steer well clear, and that was from someone involved in the formulation of the things!

NVQs in Ops/ATC are an RAF aborration that were brought in by the amateurs in the TG9 training world without too much thought as to what actually was required by the troops to satisfy a politically driven initiative within the Service. As NVQs are a government initiative, public sector agencies were forced into adopting them. And what with the funding that came with them, it was an offer too good to ignore.

The fact that there is such a poor take up and equally a miserably low completion rate for these things within the RAF should tell you that the FOAs are sussing it. Or is that the TG9 training syllabus should have been revamped decades ago and that the kids lack the knowledge required to successfully complete an NVQ. From my experiences of RAF FOAs recently, I would suggest it may well be the latter.

The ServisAir Ops Training based at their HQ at Manchester Airport might expand slightly on commercial requirements as they seem to be showing an interest in outscourced training courses for operators and airports alike. However, they are more into the Dispatch side of things, showing little interest in the Ops/ATC NVQs as there is zip commercial interest in them.


For C&G and BTEC info look up AVTEC 2000 based in Crawley, they are very enthusiastic and may well provide you with some worthwhile advice.

Hope this is of value.

[Skeleton]

Agree with most of what you say...

by the amateurs in the TG9 training world

As long as were clear that the amatuers were on high and were not non-commisioned because NVQ's were forced on them as much as the rest of TG9 then im happy.

I speak from bitter experience.

[DK338]

Skeleton,

Absolutely. The guys and gals in the Ops world were always being interfered with by the ATC mafia who sadly made all these cockeyed decisions. Sad to hear your experiences are bitter.

DK

[Skeleton]

interfered with by the ATC mafia

Never a truer word spoken. The reason the assistants always got a raw deal was simply because those deciding how there trade was structured, gave a very good impression of being interested in one side of the trade only. The failed JATCC people bumped up the promotion list proved that - And yes I know that stopped a long time ago.

The fast tracking debacle would border on the criminal if had not been so funny. Any fool could see there were never going to be enough fast tracker assistants to man towers so guess who got lumbered again. Once installed in a tower, a constant complaint was "Hang on I want to go down the Ops path"

Ops then suffered because feasibly and I will lay money on it happening your new SNCO i/c Ops could have spent his life in a tower, and not learning his craft in an ops room. Plain daft IMHO.

[DK338]

Mate, I could rant for hours on this subject. I chose to follow the Ops route after spending two tours in a tower and realising that Ops and not ATC was what flicked my switch.

What always irritated me was that without fail ALL air traffickers would view you as some sort of ATC failure, and many would talk down to you as if you were some half wit.

Ops subsidise ATC for manpower, without our people ATC would cease to function. Furthermore the whole training and career development in the trade is geared up for ATC, Ops get nothing even the basic FOA course is ATC centric. I grew weary of hearing the complaints from the newly graduated FOAs surrounding their lack of ops training. Without fail I would regularly be told that they had not been trained in this or that. Go to the muppets at Shawbs and all you got was 'We don't want to blind them with science'.............:mad:

I have gone because the prospect of becoming the PA to the SATCO was an insult and did not offer the appropriate career development. That's not an Ops job, it's an admin post and should be filled accordingly.

[Skeleton]

Yup well said and well written DK, and I thankfully avoided being the SATCO's PA. Why? because when they restructured the trade the majority of PFOM's worked from the tower. Being a mere FOM I thankfully therefore was in Ops.

The training at Shawbs constantly amazed me to, as you say very little about Ops.

The best I heard was SNCO controllers should not complete TMT because and I quote "It was not relevant"

Says it all really.

Don't even get me started on the Ops Officer, were not trained on what TG9 assistants do because we dont need to know saga!!