Royal Air Force personnel to train at Portsmouth and Cranfield
 

From the BBC:

BBC News - Royal Air Force personnel to train at Portsmouth and Cranfield

"The universities will give initial officer training and senior officer development to 3,700 personnel a year.

Officers will continue to receive in-house training at RAF Cranwell in Lincolnshire."

:confused:

I always thought IOT was a bit like a Boy's Scout camp. Perhaps Gilwell Park would be more appropriate.





(Gillwell Park is the Scouts HQ for those who don't know).

Well, that's officer training turning to a bag of **** then. Hands up those who thought that standards couldn't go any lower. :yuk:

I'm assuming that IOT will still be at Cranwell and that this is just a (nother) badly phrased article, which instead refers to the provision of academic support to IOT by outside agencies. If so, what happened to KCL who I thought were responsible for the academics phase of IOT?

If KCL deliver the academics and Cranfield is renowned in its own right for its business courses, I struggle to see what Portsmouth will bring. That we should now be teaching people business rather than leadership, is however, another thing entirely.

At least we were spared the being-buggered-by-Akela ritual at Cranwell....:ooh:

Does this really mean that the RAF is no longer going to train its own officers? Or is it, as I sincerely hope, simply bolleaux reporting by the Beeb?

That whirring noise is probably Trenchard spinning in his grave.......

'University of Portsmouth Business School' - that should mean that everyone graduates fluent in biz-speak wanque-word bolleauxology, able to prattle about 'overarching objectivity' and 'blue sea thought' whilst 'imagineering' their 'battle rhythm'.....:yuk:

My brother - Recently retired Chief Tech - Was spouting such ****e 3 years before he left. Sadly the newbies shall learn even more :yuk:

If God was going to give the World an enema, he'd stick the tube in Cranfield.

There is no story here. The contract was put out and KCL, the current academic provider, was replaced by Cranfield/Portsmouth. No big deal; although, I think Portsmouth are on a very steep curve!

The University of Portsmouth. Says it all really!

S-D

Actually, it's a rather important story. KCL are world renowned and have a specialist department in War Studies with some world experts working there. They are one of the best universities in the country, probably in Europe and don't do too badly in a global context. According to the complete University Guide, Portsmouth ranks 77th and at its highest managed to make mid-50s in the UK rankings.

Whereas KCL brought international expertise in its War Studies department, a quick look at the Portsmouth website suggests it has limited if any experience in this area, although they do offer courses in Leadership. But funny old thing, isn't that what IOT was designed to provide in itself? I really can't see what Portsmouth will bring to enhance the RAF's academic or leadership package, or for that matter reputation.

But then again, a quick look across many of the universities partnering the RAF these days shows them to be some of the more modern, or shall I say distinctly average institutions (MBA from Stafford anyone?). Maybe it is an indication of how far the RAF has fallen in recent years that the top flight institutions don't see that partnering up with Defence will do anything for their own prestige. Frankly this just looks like another way of saving money regardless of the output and no doubt there will be a hard sell as both institutions try to rope cadets into forking out for some formal qualification for just a few extra modules work.

I thought Cranfield had been running RMCS Shrivenham undergraduate degrees and the Advanced Staff College MDA (also at Shrivenham) for years.

Rgds SOS

Melchette,

What did you expect? Maybe KCL's bid should have been more competitive! besides, most of the current academics will cut across to the new provider anyway! Or..........

I once put forward a suggestion, not to the RAF I hasten to add who would probably have ignored it. I got a response from th etop man, an American,

"That is exactly the sort of blue sky thinking outside the box that we need."

My suggestionn was then quietly ignored and filed in the "not invented here" box.

sounds like we've learnt our cynicism in the same way Melchett. I suspect that there's more than a hint of truth in what you say.

S-D

Usual MOD Policy surely, cheapest is the best :ugh:

lm

Relying on my IOT training and the fantastic mentorship I got in the RAF, I have been fixing management problems at every civvy place I have worked in, frequently caused by MBAs. The comment I always get is:

"That's brilliant, where did you learn that?"

and I was a long way short of the best administrator amongst my colleagues in the RAF, as was.



This really is the final straw.....

The King's contract was operated by a wing of the Defence Studies Department (which does the academic provision for the Staff College courses), rather than War Studies. When the specification for the latest iteration of the contract was put out, King's decided not to pursue their interest further (at least according to the email I got about it).

AIUI, couple of other universities expressed interest, but also chose not to bid, again because of certain aspects of the contract (no blame attached to any side - the RAF has certain outcomes it wants, and in the grand scheme of things, universities have similar desires, and if the two don't match up, then the Universities don't bid).

As CBtL suggests, the majority of the King's academics will simply become Portsmouth academics. The team includes a former Buccaneer nav and the new head of the department - if it's the person I've been told it is - is also ex-aircrew (Phantom & F3, if memory serves, but I honestly can't recall). You're not going to see people with fancy designer specs turning up and spouting business-speak unless either of them has been dropped on their head from a great height recently (and in the case of the ex-Bucc mate, that'd have had to be after 1230 today, when I last spoke with him...)

There is, in fact, a growing interest amongst the Russell Group universities in partnering with defence, but they have certain things that they feel they need to do to [business speak] operationalise their intended strategic outcomes for general development and the Research Evaluation Framework [\business speak] which means that some contracts won't attract a bid from them, even if there is initial interest.

RUOTC the RAF way
 

Spubds like a copy of the US ROTC way whereby a good significant amount of officers receive their commission bar the USMC and I think the USCG

Cranfield is a much better respected university in my view. Having been applying/interviewing for jobs of late, many companies are impressed with the MBA from Cranfield. I can't imagine an MBA or MA from Portsmouth will have the same 'clout'? PS. Thanks for the £25K plus resettlement qualification !! :D

Wait,, there was an academic element of IOT !