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                         May 10, 2002

TRADOC responding to training needs from NCO study

 FORT MONROE, Va. (Army News Service) -- The Training and Doctrine Command is working to update and publish soldiers’ manuals, mission training plans and other training resources, according to a TRADOC official.

The lack of such training packages was cited in the NCO Army Training and Leader Development Panel study released May 2 as one of the reasons NCOs find it difficult to train their soldiers to standard.

"In this study, as well as the officers’ study, we found that some of our training enablers aren’t as good as they should be," said Col. Dennis Redmond, director of individual training under TRADOC’s deputy chief of staff for Operations and Training. Redmond is responsible for implementing coordinated TRADOC initiatives in response to all of ATLDP studies.

"We haven’t been able to, one, focus on them as we have been a very busy Army and, two, there has not been a lot of money to spread around to every facet of training and training support," Redmond said. "The chief of staff of the Army (Gen. Eric K. Shinseki) is committed to help fix these problems. That’s why he has embarked on the very comprehensive introspective look at our Army to identify what we need to focus on to enable our noncommissioned officers to do their job."

Redmond said that in some courses trainers have had to use "in-lieu-of equipment" for hands-on training.

"Sometimes that in-lieu-of equipment is not current, so we might be training on a piece of equipment that’s not what’s out there on the ground," he said.

Redmond said TRADOC is also working to update NCO Education System professional military education courses to produce adaptable NCO leaders and to ensure sergeants get the right training when they need it.

"We took an exhaustive look at common core curriculums for NCOES and found that some of these tasks continue to migrate downward," he said. "There are a lot of tasks that are being taught at, say, sergeant first class level in Advanced NCO Courses that should be rolled down to the staff sergeant in the Basic Noncommissioned Officer Course.

"We’ve started to work on a vertical needs assessment to determine exactly what tasks belong to and need to be taught in each noncommissioned officer rank and educational level."

The final course in NCOES is the Sergeants Major Course.

"We recognize that there’s a gap between advanced noncommissioned office course and the Sergeants Major Course where there are no formal courses," Redmond said. "There are two functional courses -- First Sergeants Course and Battle Staff NCO Course," the colonel said. "Not everybody is happy about filling that gap with another educational course, but if an NCO is promoted to sergeant first class at the 12th year of his career, that’s an average of eight years between that grade and being sent to the sergeant major course. That’s a big gap; we’ve got to look at how best to provide education within that void."

Technology will make instruction more exciting for soldiers, and it will replace lectures and slides.

"In the civilian world, schools that use innovation through technology find that students retain and increase their knowledge base rapidly," Redmond said. "We’ve got to leverage advanced distributed learning as it can provide great access and opportunity for both the active and reserve components. Increased use of simulations and simulators in curriculums will provide more exciting instruction (compared to lecture and slide method).

"We’ve already moved out on it, but it’s going to get even better."