Duntroon cutting officer training time by a third
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Royal Military College–Duntroon will trial a new approach to officer training this year, which will shorten the current 18-month program to 12 months.
FILE PHOTO (December 2019): Staffs Cadet of the Royal Military College celebrate their graduation from the Royal Military College – Duntroon. Photo by Corporal Tristan Kennedy.
Commandant Land Combat College Brigadier Jason Groat said trainees would receive the same training in a shorter format, meet the same graduation standards and qualifications, and graduate as lieutenants on completion of the course.
“The 12-month OCP, to be trialled from January 2024 to December 2025, marks a significant development in the Army’s commitment to deliver an integrated force that meets the requirement to be simple, scalable and agile,” Brigadier Goat said.
“As with all training, we will monitor and evaluate trainees throughout the program and, if adjustments need to be made, we will make them.”
Brigadier Goat said the trial officer course would comprise six modules that include practical applications of leadership, command, foundation warfighting and military planning and was designed to enable the same initial foundation and leadership skills for all officers.
Commanding officer RMC–Duntroon Lieutenant-Colonel Brian Hickey said, “as we re-shape and contemporise our training approach to be more effective, the training will retain the same core performance elements and critical skills that are the mainstay of Army’s ab-initio officer education pathway”.
“The trial aims to remove duplication by incorporating technology and new methods of instruction that are sources of efficiency and value for training systems and the receiving units”, Lieutenant-Colonel Hickey said.
“The program design presents an opportunity to increase the speed-to-capability for generalist officers and inform a training design to benefit other audiences.”
ADFA cadets will still do the same training, with delivery broken into modules to allow them to join their RMC class to complete their usual 12 months.
On 1 July 2023, Royal Military College-Australia and Combined Arms Training Centre (CATC) aligned to become Land Combat College (LCC) with headquarters in both Canberra and Puckapunyal.
LCC is now the single training authority to deliver foundational training and combat capabilities for land specialists.
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Indeed. Senior officers now talk like politicians. Say a lot, use the buzzwords, but actually say nothing. No exposure to the real world. We need to be thinking about plans for rapid expansion, be we need warriors, fighters. I agree, all prospective officers should go through recruit training, then IETs, then at least 12 months in a unit as a digger before being considered for officer training. And good officers were produced after 22 weeks at OTU during Vietnam. As Larteguy said maybe we need two armies. One to play with technology and new age thinking, and one, possibly based on the ARes, which just focuses on wining conventional wars.
So many of these new age educators confuse teaching with the simple conveyance of information – utilising what they say is new, “cutting edge” technology. It’s not the same. It reduces the value of the teachings in the same way it reduces costs, money and professionalism. When you’re a smaller force you need to be smarter – not dumber. Nothing beats teaching exposure to experienced professionals.
Everything old is new again! Dig out the old OCS training program and get on with it. Let’s not forget, that during Vietnam, national servicemen were trained as Platoon Commanders for the Battalions in combat in a lot less than twelve months. A lot of brave, confident, competent and long term leaders came through that system.
This sounds similar to the OCS Portsea course, no? Almost sounds like we’re heading on to a war footing…
Brig Groat became Brig Goat half way through the article. Wonder what other insignificant stuff is being cut out of the program to shorten it?
LMFAO 🙂
Too good not to just leave as is 🙂
This is terrible news, a lot of officers that they have been churning out in the last ten years have been horrible leaders and cutting their time in training by two thirds is going to make them even worse.
Well indeed I’m glad I’m not there 22 years, instructed at duntroon and they’d crammed more in then. All the gobbledegook words interoperability efficient etc are just that, words. You need plenty of time and guidance to land a new officer in a unit with credibility. No one that’s in will disagree, it’ll cost them their job. They made recruit training unrecognisable why not the officers. Good luck
What we need is more soldiers not more officers…all officer cadets should have to go through Kapooka then apply do 18 months in a Unit of the Corps they want to go to…Then go to RMC.