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Over a period of weeks, the world has changed radically for the young recruits marching by in their graduation parade. But, for the flag officer reviewing them, his world is the way it was when he was a midshipman and, he hopes, the way it will be until he retires. For he is part of a very conservative institution whose senior officers seem unwilling to understand change itself—or even the need for it.
The U. S. Naval Education and Training Command (NavEdTraCom) was established in late 1971 at the direction of then-Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Elmo Zumwalt with Vice Admiral Malcolm Cagle its first commander. This decision, resulting from the recommendation of the so-called Cagle Board Study, stemmed from the conclusion that naval training lacked adequate management and cohesiveness because of the fractionali- zation of the training function among many noninteracting managers (aviators, submariners, surface warfare officers, the Bureau of Personnel, and others responsible for a wide variety of training outcomes). The Cagle Board Study suggested pulling all these managers together under one command, and building for the first time a “Navy training system” capable of receiving integrated management.
Soon after he took command, Admiral Cagle stated the command “goal” to the 20% of the uniformed Navy now placed under his leadership: “To provide the fleet with a proficient occupant for every billet through the most efficient utilization of available resources.” Yet notwithstanding the ambitions and efforts of five successive commanders, and the expenditure of billions of dollars (averaging about two billion dollars per year for more than 11 years), the NavEdTraCom has failed to convince the fleet commanders that the sailors reporting to them from the training establishment are adequately prepared for their duties on board ship. Why is this? And what, if any
thing, can be done about it? .
First, let us look at why the Chief of Naval Educati°n and Training (CNET), the Navy’s principal training agent^ finds it so difficult to meet the fleet’s perceived needs to trained personnel. Although the answer is somewhat corn plex and many-faceted, it can be simplified with the dv scription, “There is no Navy training system.” However- if the answer can be simplified, the reasons cannot. Here is at least a partial inventory of the major reasons why ltl problem remains unresolved.
There is a traditional lack of appreciation for the role of training. At least since the advent of sophisticated weap°n systems into naval warfare, naval officers have bee11 driven by an insatiable compulsion to use their resource* for “better” and more technically complex hardware sys terns, be they platforms, propulsion plants, sensors, °r weapons. We never complete a “new” system; the eng1 neering and ordnance “changes” and modifications con1 mence almost at the laying of the keel of a ship and never cease until she is committed to the scrap heap. Because the emphasis has always been on hardware, and the resource* are finite, people problems have taken a backseat in the Navy, especially concerning their proper training to man1' tain and operate the ever-changing hardware systems- That philosophy may be on the verge of changing with the dawning understanding that, in recent times, brand-ne^
j‘sntln8 ships have been unable to leave port because of sufficient personnel on board with adequate training to tpCt Under way. But appreciation of the importance of jnaij!'n8's not enough to solve the problems as perceived tj ae fleet, e.g., when program managers in the acquisi- . 0ri commands feel the pinch of resource constraints, ainmg js a]most invariably where they turn to find relief.
I Ihe system to the fleet and worry about training ^ Cr seems to be the standard operating procedure in the UVal Material Command community.
Th .
• flere is no “system” for preparing the Navy’s blue- ^ Kets jor their prospective responsibilities. When the a^TraCom was established, it was perceived, among er outcomes, that the myriad of training activities then r °f the naval establishment would somehow become y cmatized, organized, and synergized into a cohesive tem designed for the professional career-long develop- hjsnt °f our personnel. Admiral Cagle’s initial mandate to new command was twofold: design a naval training to em’ anc* ^es'£n a management structure and doctrine ■ nianage the new system. That seems simple enough, . Cn that the designers are knowledgeable concerning the >ning activities and resources currently in place and Crefore available for the structuring of the new system, th> **lal lf,ere *s a vahd and stated set of requirements for e 0utput of the system. It would be unfair to the many
dedicated officers and civilians who have been in the NavEdTraCom headquarters since 1972 to say that the first condition did not exist. But it is not unfair to say that few of them understood the simple concept of a “system” designed for training along a career continuum. They tended to think more in terms of specific training to meet a specific need, usually the maintenance and operation of a piece of equipment.
There does not now exist, nor has there ever existed, a set of requirements which a Navy training system should be designed to meet. For example, it seems fairly elementary that there is some knowledge, say, of fundamentals, principles, and rules, which is essential to the performance of almost any work. Likewise, there are skills (soldering, reading wiring diagrams, trouble-shooting algorithms, welding, or use of common tools) essential to the performance of almost any work in a particular occupational field (rating). The provision of this knowledge and skill is in turn a prerequisite to the ability to perform a job, the “bottom line” requirement. Given these simple lists, one can, with knowledge of the kinds of training activities currently in the establishment, design a “system” made up of a set of functional subsystems all contributing to the production of trained sailors. The definition of such a set of requirements for a naval training system has not been recognized, much less generated and adopted.
Even the most naive nontrainer understands that having
elected to build the system, it is still necessary to identify the skills and knowledge needed by Navy personnel in each of the Navy’s ratings and for each piece of hardware in our large inventory of equipment and platforms. The Navy lacks an occupational data base describing the knowledge and skill required of every skill level (pay grade) in every rating in the Navy. The nearest such inventory is the document known as the Occupational Standards, which any trainer will quickly tell you is inadequate for the structuring of training programs. So we go blithely on our way, with “A” schools basing their curricula on one set of occupational data, some teaching basic skills, others teaching to specific equipment; “C” schools using the rate training manuals which use still another set of data and have no connection with what the “A” schools teach; the personnel qualification standards program plodding along on its own data base; and so on. With no system, there is nothing to “manage” in the true sense, creating confused sailors and unhappy fleet commanders.
There is no enlisted professional career development plan. This issue is an extension of the previous one. The difference lies in the definition of “career development plan,” which we will say is a documentation of all the skills and knowledge required of the members of an occupational field (Navy rating), when these are needed along a career continuum, where they may be acquired, how they will be certified for competency, and what kinds of basic skills (communications and computational) will be needed for success in the preparation for advancement up the career ladder. The documentation of the data base is necessary for sailors’ career planning and preparation.
There is an innate reluctance among senior naval officers to accept advanced instructional/training technologies. The traditional characterization of naval officers which we pride ourselves on, but which is often at odds with our need for progress, is conservatism, the unwillingness to make changes in our traditional ways of doing things. Piping the side is a wonderful tradition which should, and we hope will, always have a place in our Navy. But traditional ways of instruction and training are not necessarily sound just because “we have always done it that way.” Technologies are making important changes in almost everything we do, both as naval people and as citizens of our culture. Communications, transportation, amusements, construction, materials, designs, housing, to name a few examples, are changing dramatically.
To fail to take advantage of the changes made possible through instructional technology is not only hiding one’s
The training sailormen are receiving may be confusing them more than it is helping them; “A” schools such as this patternmaker-molder school base their curricula on one set of occupational data while “C” schools use a completely different set of data.
head in the sand, but probably placing us in a position where we cannot possibly meet the ever-increasing de' mands for more and better training currently. Education^ research and the developments in computer hardware an software technology have provided us with the means f°r improving the productivity of our limited training re' sources by at least 25%, yet those senior officers who have a voice in the decisions affecting instructional methodologies, lacking as they do any experience or expertness m the domain, refuse to adequately support the implementation of these technologies. One need only cast back to the resistance placed in the path of John Adolphus Bernal Dahlgren when he proposed rifling cannon, to the reluc" tance of our leadership to replace the battleship with the attack carrier, to the almost total resistance of the submarine force senior officers to the introduction of nucleaj power, and the overwhelming resistance of senior nava officers, including submariners, to the Polaris program,t0 understand that we are a very conservative institution' unwilling to take the time to understand change and the need for it. Naval training is suffering because of our senior officers’ unwillingness to learn about training/instruC' tional technology.
There is an institutional mechanism—the Progr(Ulu Planning, and Budgeting System (PPBS)—which prevent the Training Command from meeting the fleet’s needs J°r well-trained personnel. Put in place by Robert McNamara
be eif ^e Was l^e Secretary of Defense, PPBS may have its |jee lts f°r the acquisition of weapon systems, may have a Meritorious when introduced about 1962, and may be awless model for fiscal and other resources manage- 0f nt’ but from the standpoint of meeting the requirements systematic approaches to the development of training thefrrarns’d is an insurmountable barrier. For example, if trai Cornrnanding officer of a fleet unit were to identify sub 'n^ 3S so'ut‘on t0 one °f bis many problems, and tra-nilt bis finding through the “chain of command,” a in th'n^ re<lu’rement t0 be met by CNET, if all the players ann 6 . reaucratic process acted with alacrity, it would be Prorox,Mately four-and-one-half years before a training Plusfani Wou^ arrive on board! While many of these 50- the rnont^ls °f anguishing delay would be attributable to Wo u°rma* viscosity associated with the flow of paper- Untj’ 'bree-quarters of it would lie squarely with PPBS. Ca that roadblock to timeliness in program development l0nc ehniinated or bypassed, it appears to this close and train’1"116 °'3server °f the training scene that the Navy’s n,eln8 system can never be responsive to fleet require-
eVere ^ace a problem of monumental dimensions. How- Pro n° 'mPetliments to a solution are such that either SerfT Unt*erstanding of their nature and/or suitable mana- eyea Visions cannot ameliorate all to some extent, and j^n ehrninate some. But half measures will not suffice. strat° one questions that naval officers must be the best of neede2lsts, tacticians, and leaders. They do not necessarily to be professional trainers also, but if they are unable to find the time to learn the facts about training and training technologies, they should leave the decisions to those who can. They should support these professional decisions with the required resources and leadership. Training is the Navy’s foremost mission in peacetime.
The decision to make the necessary managerial/admin- istrative changes, coupled with the resources associated with the price of one F/A-18 aircraft, is necessary to bring our Navy’s training function up to the expectations of its clients.
Captain Scanland was graduated from the Naval Academy and spent 30 years as a line officer, serving in battleships, cruisers, destroyers, submarines, carriers, and auxiliaries. In World War II, he commanded a submarine. He also served as director of the antisubmarine warfare program in the Bureau of Naval Weapons, as first Director of the Ballistic Missile Office, OpNav, and he commanded three naval weapons stations. Following his retirement, he earned a master's degree in educational research and a Ph.D. in educational technology from Florida State University. In 1972, he joined the staff of the CNET, as director of Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation, and of innovative program developments. He retired from there in July 1983