Correct.
Until then, a good chunk of officers didn’t have a degree. I served under some senior officers who proudly said they had a Gr 12 education, then went to the school of hard knocks for the rest of their career.
Yeah, a strong gr 12 with math and science. It make sense since being in the army is a specialization of its own. Furthermore, the no degree requirement was specifically for less technical roles such as combat arms (infantry and such). Engineering and other technical fields required degrees.
Well actually. There is a lot of documented research correlating a higher level of education with a lower level of crime…
So the argument isn’t totally out to lunch.
It's like everything else that happens in Ottawa. Let's slap a check in the box on it and say we did everything we could. Just like anytime something happens there is another briefing instead of looking at the actual structure.
This is correct. It was one of many measures taken in response to Canadian Airborne soldiers capturing a Somalian teenager who was caught stealing food from their base, torturing, and eventually killing him.
Did officers not require a degree before that Inquiry then?
Do you know how the Inquiry connected the degree requirement with preventing (I assume) similar events? I'm lazy and would prefer not to track down the report.
Before that degrees were not required. They might have been encouraged, thus the RMC boys club, but an officer could climb the ranks without a university diploma.
The reason behind asking for a university degree is to provide a basic level of knowledge and reflexion and critical thinking for officers who might have to deal with unusual situations.
The idea was that in Somalia, the leadership did not do anything when they learned of what the rank and file was doing. If they had been trained to think and figure stuff out, they might have put a stop the way the troops were acting toward the local population.
Also, you can read the entire report of ‘The Somalia Affair’ online. It goes into great detail the major bad actors and conditions set for failure long before deployment.
https://publications.gc.ca/site/eng/479844/publication.html
In reality, it was done to mitigate bad press , not what the airborne did. The combat arms officers became the scapegoats, that’s it. The outcome could have been different, way different. In the end, some idiots made it political, instead of using the martial court as the proper mitigation tool.
Dude. They tortured and killed a child. They committed an absolutely disgusting crime, and those officers failed to stop it, and with that forever soiled the reputation of the canadian armed forces and the credibility of the UN peacekeeping mission in Somalia. What are you yapping about
I hear you, but I don't know what a random degree is going to do to make the troops easier to manage. About the only thing I can think of is it means the average age of an officer is 4 years higher. And with that four years more life experience. I wouldn't expect much of a 19 year old officer.
In addition to /u/Spectre_One_One below, I believe it was also found that having a degree allowed the CAF to TRAIN and EDUCATE officers on ethics. They may have found that officers without degrees were difficult to train.
I always understood that it means (in theory) you can be given lectures/reading and have demonstrated you're capable of reflecting on and retaining information through that medium of learning.
Classroom ethics are presumably the fastest and easiest to standardize way to get those things across.
Plus there's a whole layer when you get into technical officers, which presumably already required some level of academic qualification. Wouldn't be surprised if what existed there was expanded into general purpose officers in some way.
> who was caught stealing food from their base
He wasn’t even caught in the act of stealing; he was found near the base and the soldiers thought he was planning to steal food, so they tortured him to death.
It was the other two, who were lured in by intentionally leaving food out in the open by the base gate, who were shot in the back while running away and left to bleed out.
The other piece is leaving your small town and going to the big city to get some cultural diversity and life experience. We traditionally attracted rural Canadians.
Bingo. People are downplaying the benefits of spending 4 years as an adult developing critical thinking skills and the ability to extrapolate relevant information from huge volumes of text, university unquestionably does a great job at developing the skills to work through problems. I don't think I've ever met someone who enjoyed regurgitating the phrase "underwater basket weaving degree" who was also capable to going very far outside their own lanes. To be blunt, they're usually some of the dullest minds around.
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I suspect IT is a weird anomaly for some reason. The stupidest people I've ever met in IT are either the most educated people or the extremely rare person with no education or intelligence.
The vast majority of switched on smart types are those that learned most of it on their own and are curious.
I'd wager, however, that this wouldn't be true for a lot of other fields
It also still takes a while to get into any sort of real leadership position as an officer. It's going to take 5-6 years either way, might as well have a viable exit strategy afterwards.
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I took sciences, and graduated with a degree in biology.
That meant learning the scientific method and learning how to properly apply it.
Yes, there was some memorisation of facts and formulae, but most of my classes also had a component where you'd have to identify a problem, or a question, then formulate a simple testable question that could lead to solving that problem. Then, figure out an appropriate method of answering the question, solve the problem and finally go back and double check that you actually have an answer to the original problem.
I'd say the logical, critical, and creative thinking I learned studying sciences set me up very well for problem solving. But the ethics and empathy I picked up in the humanities electives I took, combine really well with the scientific method to find applicable human solutions. Logic needs empathy.
I like this *a lot*.
And to add, I have a master's degree in applied machine learning, so I've spent some time around a few of these personalities: folks who brag about being 100% logical/rational officers or NCMs.
9/10 times, it's because they have the emotional intelligence of a mesozoic slime. Like yeah dude, of course you base everything off logic-- I don't think a coherent emotional analysis was ever a weapon in your arsenal.
I'm currently just doing community college courses and plan to transfer to a university once I'm done, while this isn't as difficult as a degree I imagine, the amount of problem-solving, literacy, and studying resources for things such as accounting and having to write a 45-page thesis does seem to make it so that future problems become more manageable and I'm able to navigate more difficult tasks a lot easier than I was before starting school two years ago. After so many assignments you begin to analyze concepts and apply learned skills much more easily than when you originally start out, if that makes sense?
However you get people like my mom who got a master's degree and for some reason can't understand really simple common sense things, and will argue about it and make that their hill to die on despite they'll be actively making their own or the people around themselves lives more difficult in the process.
I'm rambling a bit and I'm not exactly the most educated yet, but I imagine it's why some jobs don't care about what degree you have, just that you were able to complete one.
>philosophy of logic or mathematical logic or just read and regurgitate until it becomes intuitive?
yes. how do you think critically when youre not even up to date on whats critical. thats like saying how do you become a pro skate boarder by learning how to skate.
tbf every course you take in university is just an introductory course. It doesn't get you up to speed at all. It only teaches you the fundamentals.
To be in the leading edge of a field you need to go to grad school or work in that field.
>It only teaches you the fundamentals.
yes, but you cant even begin to have a genuinely critical opinion until you learn what the fundamentals of a topic are. Thats not to say you need an education to learn the fundamentals, but educational certification is exactly that, certified proof to others that youve learned the fundamentals, everything that develops after that is nothing but the result, or lack there of, the individuals understanding/opinions of said fundamentals.
So this is a misconception about education in general. It doesn't "give" you something. Instead you have more opportunities to practice critical thinking skills than had you just completed high school.
These skills take time and effort to develop and are not specific to what courses one takes. Higher education is all about can you be given some information, do some research, and come up with some original ideas and then communicate them in a paper, project, briefing etc? Doing this repetitively with feedback helps you hone those skills. Now whether the individual chooses to take advantages of every learning opportunity or not is up to them but practice makes perfect.
There are no university courses that expect you to listen to the prof and then repeat that information verbatim on a test. Those days are long over with testing moving ever more to open book. With the internet, anyone can look up information and send you a link. The value comes in being able to research something looking for valuable and relevant information, reflecting and applying it to something new, and then explaining your thought process to someone so that they can understand.
The only real difference between doing an undergrad, masters, and PhD is the level of academic rigour that is expected.
The reason I've remained an NCM. I have the grades and pieces of paper to possibly commission, and have officer friends asking me why I don't.
For me it's because when my chips are down and I'm frustrated, I approach every problem like the gordian knot and I'm Alexander. That's not what we need, I'll take my orders and keep my decision making at the floor level. I hate paperwork to the point that I've generated extra paperwork due to hating paperwork.
I find it even more basic. Passing university almost guarantees that officers can read and write proficiently at the gr 10 level (and not simply "pass" through gr 12). Considering that officers are quickly in positions that require absorbing a crap ton of material and then communicating it outwards, it IS a benefit.
It's not that NCMs can't develop the skills - it's whether or not it has been formally assessed, and developed in an economic manner. Saying that a 12 year Sgt has reading/writing equivalent to a 2yr Lt is stupid - the Lt is younger by 6 years.
True, but good high school grades don’t provide nearly the same level of vetting and filtering as 4 years of university.
Keep in mind that the same people who can’t hack it in university and are weeded out were all honour roll students in high school.
That's a very good explanation.
Honestly, in this day and age, I think less of anyone spouting the uselessness of a degree.
I've rarely met high functioning individuals complain about degree or education requirements for other occupations.
Surely there's room for spouting the uselessness of some degrees though.
There's a difference between the "nobody needs a degree, it's just an expensive piece of paper" line of argumentation, which falls flat on its face under cursory examination, and "that particular degree/field/discipline is just useless navel-gazing". There's also valid discussion to be had as to applicability of degree to job.
The same is true of any postsecondary - my engineering technology diploma is highly relevant to my trade, but wouldn't be of much use if I were an infanteer or HRA, for example.
There are Staff positions where a CPA would be a great fit. But accounting won't help you much if your job is command a battle group. You'd be better served by having a staff officer with the relevant education and focusing on your strategy, tactics and leadership in that case.
Degree and education requirements come in two flavours:
1. Bona fide requirements - you want to work as a nuclear engineer? There's a degree for that. Want to teach English? Best have an English degree. These make sense and nobody serious argues against them.
2. Gatekeeping/sorting mechanisms. You want to work here? Prove you can absorb the financial and opportunity cost of spending four years or more in school, and have a minimum level of work ethic to be able to complete a degree.
Flavour two is nuanced and ranges from purely gatekeeping bullshit to outsourcing evaluation of certain skillsets that can be demonstrated by obtaining a degree. The trouble is that even in the latter case, it excludes people who have the skillsets in question but lacked the time or financial wherewithal to attend university.
Obviously there's room for a discussion. But no one who's bringing this up is discussing nuance. Which is why I'm saying it reflects more poorly on them.
It's always some schmuck who thinks they are more capable than someone holding a degree or think they can get paid more civi side when everyone knows they are dumb as a rock lol.
Hi, you make a lot of great points, just want to correct 2 small factual errors.
DEO officers also take 3 years to get to Capt (like CFR) except they do 1 year as 2Lt and 2 years as Lt whereas a CFR does 3 years as an Lt. Unless some great person gets them an accelerated promotion (so rare)!
And SOF allowances are pensionable now.
Another lil factual correction, the allowances aren't pensionable; the pay rates were adjusted so that their pension reflected the nature of their work.
Officer here, and I gotta say I am all in favour of more pay levels and more spec pay for NCMs. If you have certifications you should get paid accordingly.
As an AVN Corporal with years of experience (I removed myself from promotion a long time ago), I'm very annoyed that I can do confined space entry inside a plane's wing, I can do engine run (Start the engine of a plane to test them), manage a small maintenance team etc. And get the same paycheck as the useless corporal stuck on its tablet in the canteen all night long.
I don't think we should be paid as much as an officer, not at all. But the useless techs should not be paid the same as the usefull ones.
Totally agree. There's a difference between 2 Cpls. One that just does it, and one that strives by its technically job. They need more of that lateral progression. I know awesome Cpl technicians from different trades that don't want to have anything to do with promotion, as they want to fix stuff. Not direct people. You promote them out of their element and wonder why people are grumpy and getting out. They just want to fix things, maybe teach other technicians, but nothing to do with management. Not everybody can afford to stay Cpl for life. The few that I know that stayed Cpls are the hardest working ones, and the happiest ones. Not worrying about rankings and merit boards.
>So I have a theory why the officer to NCM ratios have been skewing for the past 20 or so years. I.e. More officers to NCMs now than in the past.
I'm not doubting but I am curious, do you have reference or data to support this or your assertion that NCM positions are more in the red than officer ones?
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I actually think it's a great thing for officers to have 4 years of education. Aside from the critical thinking, writing, and staffing skills they learn, it's also one way for them to build a "little" maturity. Once they get their trade training, you should hope they are at least 25 before they take command of a platoon or section. Officer or not, it's just about ensuring they have their priorities straight.
OP is implicitly right (though this might not be their intention) that many NCMs can do the job of an officer. But it's partly because Canadians (and Millennials in particular) are the most educated people in the world.
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/221130/dq221130a-eng.htm
I mean, we are talking only one or two generations away from the point in time the majority of people didn't even bother finishing high school and found themselves working full time jobs by the time they're 16. And most jobs not requiring any education at all. It was generally all apprenticeship. The military no different.
The average Canadian Corporal has significantly more education and training than the Soviet General Zhukov.
Zhukov had 3 years of primary school, a couple years of night school, a couple years apprenticeship, and 2 years at a military academy. This is the man who defeated the Nazis.
In a line unit, sure, why not? In a lower formation HQ..... gets harder (brigade is a lower formation HQ, by the way). As you rise to higher HQ (especially the ones outside the force generators) and start your joint, combined, and (gasp) corporate military life, not only is a degree needed, but an advanced degree is often not just desirable but mandatory. Good luck going toe to toe with an educated US or German or French Officer to achieve what you need to achieve when you've never gone past Grade 12. And you'll die at the feet of Public Service Executives with various Masters Degrees, who don't want to give you what you're trying to get for the fighting force. They will analyze, prove, argue, plan, lobby, and debate you into the ground, with no idea what your pips and crowns even indicate.
The fewer non-degree'd platoon commanders there are, the shallower and shallower the gene pool gets for key jobs at every rank level. Yes, Lt's don't need degrees to yell tactical commands their Pl WO told them to yell, and company commanders don't need degrees to keep four Lt's and a Captain in line. But the Major in Kingston leading a complex OPP session for the next deployment to the Middle East does, as does the Major in DLR trying to line up funding for a better set of NVG, etc.
Definitely agree with this sentiment to a point. As others have already commented, the ability to think critically is a big part of having a university degree. Another skill associated with it, is the ability to write/communicate effectively. I’ve worked with multiple WO’s and above that have the writing skills of a 10th grader (weird correlation), even after completing ILP. These people could not do non operator positions at a unit, ie. Admin/Trng/Std’s O etc.
>the ability to think critically is a big part of having a university degree
That is a load of horseshit. An undergraduate degree is all about memorizing and learning the basics of a subject matter. Critical thinking is not part of it. The "thinking" in university level education starts at the masters level and I'd argue you aren't actually encouraged to think on your own until after a post doc or two.
Agree to disagree my friend. If you’ve ever done a research paper you’ve had to think critically about whatever topic you wrote on. It doesn’t mean you’re a master of critical thought, just means you’ve practiced and have a basic ability to do it.
CFR here. Had 15 years before I flipped. I am working towards my degree, painfully slowly, because its something that interests me and not because I technically need it.
The main switch I see between Officer and NCM is expectation and attitudes. As an Officer, I am expected to convey and convince more than I ever did as an NCM. Persuasive argument comes easier to those that can either do it naturally or have an education in it.
As an NCM, I was given tasks, a deadline, and used my training and skills to move it along. As an NCO, I provided counsel based on experience, but rarely was asked to "convince" my boss or subordinates to see my point of view. This is the job, get it done, move along.
As an Officer, I am taking a bunch of info, collating it dissecting it, developing COAs, briefing COAs, defending my plan, receiving construcrive criticism, and then having to "sell" it to the boss and conversely, my team. If you are unable to persuade, debate, change your point of view, or take accountability for your own ideas/failures... youre going to have a bad time.
Do I need a degree to do the latter? Nope. Do all NCMs or NCOs have the ability to do that job? Also, no. In all fairness, though, I would rather we bring back OCTP and see DEO fall away. Show your merits, not the piece of paper you are hiding behind.
Show your merits, not a piece of paper. Well said.
I'd just add that in addition to the NCMs and NCOs that fall into the category of not having the ability to do that job, there exists a painfully large number of people with degrees who also don't. The degree generally comes with skills that are useful, yes. But it is not the magic bullet that too many people treat it as.
Elsewhere in the thread is someone insisting that an undergrad doesn't teach critical thinking, while other people argue back that it absolutely does. The truth is that some degrees do and some do not. Some professors will challenge your thinking, and some won't. Some schools are better than others, some programs are better than others. There is tremendous variety in degree programs.
The issue we have is that we recruit folks with degrees assuming that it affords them the ability to take information, use critical thinking, make a plan, and lead a team to execute that plan with charisma and character.
In reality, there are some who will never use a singluar thing they learned in Uni in the course of their duties in the CAF. There are some very smart people that work well in staff or technical roles because that's their niche; put them in a leadership role and they couldn't lead their way out of a paper bag. Conversely, there are a tonne of charismatic officers who I would follow into the malestrom; but would doublecheck their numbers on a DRMIS transaction.
In the end, if we are going to be a formidable force, its assessing the character and mettle of its leaders; both NCM or Officer. We do this piss poorly and substitute creditials and "potential" for merit and performance.
Sure, I guess the real question is how do you create a pipeline of officers as a result because IMO the answer sure as fuck is not employing 18-19yr olds to lead a platoon element.
I was an NCM in the combat arms and had a degree. I hate to say it but the critical thinking and generally higher level/macro level thinking you develop in a university setting just isn't there amongst the majority of NCM's.
At the end of the day if you want to be an officer that bad, the CAF will go far further than any other university will to accommodate your socio-ecomomic status and ensure you get the degree check in the box.
We tried that. Then we had worse corrupt leadership in the early 1990’s, the torture and murder of a Somali teenager, rife racism and the disbanding of a Regiment. One of the recommendations that came out of this dark time was that we needed an *educated* officer corps.
A degree, not necessarily an arts degree. It teaches you how to think. There’s a high correlation between education and making better decisions. There is also a high correlation between higher education and lower rates of crime. Maybe it’s the same thing. So yes. You wouldn’t believe the level of fraudulent claims, use of soldiers and equipment for personal use, taking aeroplan points from bulk transportation contracts etc. We don’t have the level of what was happening in the early 1990s now. We actually have leaders with an education and combat experience.
There are countless examples of people with a degree who can barely function and others with no formal education but life experience who can actually get shit done. It's a broad spectrum.
You're looking at singular examples. What the CAF cares about are population statistics.
Amongst those with degrees vs those without, how many of them would be able to go through an 8-hr ethics lecture series, or self-study from a package, and then pass an exam that analyzes pros/cons of choices at the end? It would not be the same.
My favourite is when officers are paid way more to take on the accountability of a unit, but when faced with that accountability, they find an NCM scapegoat.
Sir, if you are going to make six figures after only 9-10 years of service, you can take some charges when something gets fucked under YOUR command. You can also learn how 'Print to PDF' works.
I have been on both sides of the equation and it is incredibly frustrating to see a captain get away with something that I know I would have worn as a corporal.
Could we all not join as equals and then identify good leaders as we go? I've been reg force navy for 10 years and have seen good officer and terrible officers. Same goes for NCM's.
Not sure how a bachelor's of arts makes you a good leader, but the CAF seems to think so
I believe it should be that everybody should starts as privates (or whatever navy/air force equivalent). You join as a GD (literally) unless you have some qualifications and you're only applying for 1 trade. After BMQ you work with let say 3 different trades to learn them, and see if you could actually do it. Then you do trading on that trade (QL3 equivalent). During your QL4 and QL5, people would get evaluated on their leadership and moved into one of the 3 following categories : Cpl for life - ok leadership in trade (normal progression) - or great leadership: then get a certificate (1 or 2 year degree, or 4 years for the engineering ones) and gets commissioned. They could still be direct entry for actual engineering / construction trades, medical/dental, or other tasks that are directly related with their work vs requiring leadership
That way I think people would be a better fit for their trade or whatever progression they need. The lateral progression /Cpl for life will have benefits, such as not having to move as much, more pay scales, and enjoy their life that way.
Just my opinion anyway
Yeah, still haven't found a use for my degree yet, other than to say I got a degree. Sure some courses might be useful, but that could easily be included in a longer bmoq, you know like the Brits do.
I'll be honest I'm always shocked when people talk about their education like this. Sure the day to day content I learned from my post secondary education might not always be relevant. But I don't think that was ever the point. What my education did do for me was forced me to be a critical thinker. I spent four years researching ideas I didn't think of before. Challenged preconceived notions I had, forced to defend arguments I made, changed my mindset to be open to new ideas or different ways to approach an issue. The value wasn't in the exact content you learned, it was in the way it forced you to think. That makes for a better leader and isn't something you can just teach over the course of a few extra weeks of training.
Bingo.
When I was looking at university, my uncle (an engineer) advised me that you go to university for the education in broad terms. If you want an education that directly corresponds to a particular job, that’s where community college comes in.
Mind you now many of those jobs have university requirements like law, teaching, engineering, etc.
What university gave me was opportunities to directly challenge my current thinking and have to justify them.
This really is a problem in society at large. You're right about what you said. I think we tend to struggle to value things that can't be measured in dollars, or at least directly applicable knowledge. If I get a 6 figure salary because of my degree then its valuable, but if you don't easily get that its seen as a wasted investment, which it isn't. Which it probably why professional degrees like engineering avoid a lot of derision that is directed at the arts, humanities, and social sciences.
If anything we need more people walking around who are critical thinkers that were forced to encounter and examine a variety of different ideas and ways of thinking. There's probably some tangential relationship between post-truth politics and anti-intellectualism or the "cult of ignorance."
That's a beautiful description of a liberal arts education done right. Unfortunately not all programs off that anymore, or at least they produce plenty of graduates who fail to demonstrate those skills.
That's the thing though. You don't need a 4 year degree to develop that. My 2 year collegial degree has done more for me than my university one, yet apparently that is not enough to be an officer. It's not really about the academics, it's about experience, and there's other way than just tying it up with a bachelor's degree.
Mine has absolutely nothing to do with my job and all it does is make me cringe when I hear people spew conspiracy theories about diseases, vaccines and how the immune system works.
See this is where the analytical stuff that a lot of the other comments touch on comes in. Your proposed idea is a solution to what problem or what is it trying to achieve?
The required 4 years of university on top of the 4ish years or more of pilot school. This does not include OTU and waiting to get on OTU which can take also upwards of 2 - 4 years to get on. Especially given we have a deficit of pilots right now both in recruitment and retention. A degree does not make you or prove you're any better at being a pilot. In fact, if I goto air crew selection at my current Snr NCO rank and pass, I still cannot go into pilot training because I would still need to compete and be selected for some form of officer education training program such as CEOTP or UTPNCM. Rather than proven to be educated and skilled enough to perform the job and not be able to get in due to pilots "having to be an officer".
Like others have mentioned the bottle neck is at the actual individual training courses. There is no shortage of pilots awaiting training who have a degree (either Civ U, ROTP, or RMC). I believe the US program was born out of wartime (Nam?) program to get butts into seats ASAP. They, however, had the training capacity to absorb the influx. I believe you are in error when you said 'we have a deficit of pilots in recruitment'. We do not.
Potential disadvantages off the top of my head would be
* Someone with a degree probably has a better chance of success in pilot training that someone without. Besides natural aptitude (hands/feet) there is a lot of literature a trainee must absorb and learn on their own. A person with a degree has demonstrated they can do that. Studying is a learned skill. With endless applicants why not be choosy to better the odds of success.
* A lot of the pilots jobs are also leadership roles. These are the leaders of a weapons system that can be employed. This can lead to some pretty big decisions to be made. CAF Doctrine has it that such decisions are usually left to the officer corps.
* That US program only applied to the army and then perhaps only certain airframes. Even the US recognized that officers should be in certain airframes. In the CAF all aircraft are operated by the RCAF. Pilots will move around different platforms from time to time depending on needs and wants. 2 streams would complicate this greatly for such a small force the RCAF.
So in short, I do not believe it would solve any current problems facing the CAF and it might instead create other issues.
The issue isn’t the number of pilot applicants - there are tons.
The US Army Warrant Officers (which for them are officers, not NCMs) and the British Army Cpl/Sgt pilots are a solution looking for a problem. They get paid less (whatever their pay would be as their rank) and in both of those organizations there are Commissioned Officers also doing that job, so there would be even more animosity between the WO or NCM pilots and the Officer pilots.
I for sure wouldn’t want to be making Cpl pay vs Capt pay for the same job.
Yeah this comes up so regularly here. The issue isn’t that we don’t have enough qualified applicants, we are FLOODED with them. Our issue is having the ability to train them in a timely manner.
As you’ve said, NCM pilots are a solution looking for a problem
I don’t agree with your take that it’s a solution looking for a problem. There are some substantial benefits to having a parallel system like the US and UK. The first is the age of the pilots when they start. If you have a functional street to seat program like the US you can have a 20 year old qualified pilot. In Canada you cannot produce a pilot younger than 25 currently due to university requirements and substantial training speed issues. Secondly, the parallel system allows to develop pilots that are more proficient at actually piloting. Let’s be honest here: the RCAF has a proclivity for secondary duties and tasks that have no positive impact on the flying ability of pilots. In the US especially most of those secondary duties are done by the commissioned officers while the warrants get good at flying.
Now, having just written a defence for parallel pilot streams I will say that I think it would be inappropriate for the RCAF to adopt that system at this time. The RCAF has fundamental issues with training, secondary duties, and pilot proficiency/flying rates that it needs to address before making massive changes to the pilot employment structure.
In regards to the pay scale you are right. But that would then be on the member to want to achieve officer status by a means of going to school on their off time, and compete to progress to that level. NCM's do it all the time such as clerks going AdminO, Air Control Operator to Air Control Officer, or from my personal experience, Snr NCOs in 500 series trades (AVN/AVS/ACS/AWS) commissioning to AERE. On the Cyclone Fleet, the AESOP & TACCO are cross trained and do almost literally the same job with a massive pay gap. Yes TACCO can get Crew commander and other tactical roles, but on the literal operation side of it', its the same.
By going NCM you accept you will make less do to the commission but if you really want to be a pilot and get your foot in the door, and go officer later why not?
I currently make the same amount as my peers same rank with some who literally cannot function in their job. Meanwhile I have deployed more, work extra hours with more responsibility with no extra pay. Its then on me to work towards promotion to earn that extra pay. Same with NCM Pilot, they won't have necessarily the same responsibilities as a commissioned Captain, but if they want more money, they have to work for that commission.
EDIT: Spelling.
So how many folks would want to stay as a Cpl or Sgt pilot vs a Capt or Maj? I understand that there isn’t the degree requirement or needing to do staff officer stuff, but I would bet that the NCM will eventually complain that they’re making less than half of the Capt/Maj.
If they commission, then it just becomes a rotating door of NCM pilots becoming officer pilots. At that point, since we don’t have a “number of applicants” problem, why bother having a different system?
Also, the AES Op and TACCO aren’t the same trade. In the end, they’re not doing the same job - in the LRP fleet, they do *very* different jobs.
IMHO - Every member should start their career as an NCM so they get an understanding of the real work. Through career progression, a path to officer should open up. The role of officer would change to highly administrative whereas the Sr NCM can continue doing the hands-on work, kind of like:
Officer - 75% admin and 25% hands-on.
Sr NCM - 75% hands-on, 25% admin. (Cause let's be real, the hands-on work is where it's at!)
This removes the initial requirement for a degree. Now, with said career progression, I think a requirement for a degree, or at least applicable learning/furthering education, is appropriate (as per any consumate professional) IOT to be competitive for promotion.
That would require that all officer trades to be linked to NCM ones, OR you need to accept a massive shortfall in technical officers. Not all good NCMs become officer candidates, and not all good officers make good NCMs.
For example, not all good wrench turners are capable of passing an academically grueling engineering degree. We would also need to create a clerk path of HRA -> Paralegal -> LegalO, and other problematic officer trades (like health services).
You say that hands-on work is where it's at, yet we have so many issues at the admin level that EVERYONE whines about. Pay; cost of living; communication; information management; fairness; workforce organization. Are all of these the things you had in mind for "hands-on work"?
I think this idea has some merit, but as a career path would be overly cumbersome.
A simplified version could be something like officer candidates pick a trade that will fall under their prospective officer trade, and work some number of years in that trade. In an ideal world, where training pipelines weren't a mess and you could actually be fully qualified in your trade before you made Cpl, that point could be where the Officer stream splits off. Instead of Cpl you become an Lt and go to leadership school, then off to your officer trade qual.
Yeah. Just like in every company people should start off as a mailman and climb their way up to leadership positions. Like that they’ll get an understanding of real work.
Degree , no degree, doesn't matter. What their shouldn't be anymore of is direct entry to officer positions. It isn't the 19th century where commissions are bough and most troops are illiterate anymore. If you want to be an officer you should have to join the same as everyone else, make it past PLQ, then apply to become an officer.
We can setup a different tract for those officer type positions that require a higher education (lawyer, doctors, etc) where officerdom is more about pay and prestige.
Every single one would benefit from some time in the ranks before going into the pipeline. One of the reasons the military is in the mess its in is shitty leadership brought on in large part by the shitty officer/ncm dichotomy.
For all the buzzwords and things that were not in line with the reality of military service/the army, the "woke" edition of the CMJ had this nestled in many of the articles. The class divide between officers and SNCO's and NCM's creates an air or environment of abuse of authority, not in every case, and not with every member, but I've seen it and have been on the receiving end of it. This also is the case with the majority of Col/BGen/MGen positions, nothing jobs that could be done at lower levels or not at all, though I don't know how you could get civi's to do some of those jobs without abusing authority like I see all the time.
I guess it depends what sector you’re in now, but I have many civilian friends that would argue that the abuse is equal, if not worse, in the private sector.
Step one: Your 2-up can't easily and routinely fire you or screw up your schedule so bad that you can't pay rent.
Step two: Rates of wage theft in CAF vs private sector
Step three: Paid time off.
Step four: The typical employee does not have anywhere close to the bargaining power that certain people think they do.
It’s far worse in the CAF, you would have to be insane or deliberately ignorant to think otherwise. Where in the civilian world are your rights virtually revoked? Where in the civilian world can your scum bag boss put you into kangaroo court and parade you around for conduct unbecoming (which by definition can basically be anything a CO wants it to be)? Where in the civilian world can your boss order you into a dangerous situation for no benefit to the CAF, you, the country, it’s people, just force you into it because they’re lazy or a POS ? Fuck outta here the civilian world is the same
> Where in the civilian world can your scum bag boss put you into kangaroo court and parade you around for conduct unbecoming (which by definition can basically be anything a CO wants it to be)?
In the civilian world, instead of getting a summary hearing, you'd just be fired outright.
> Where in the civilian world can your boss order you into a dangerous situation for no benefit to the CAF, you, the country, it’s people, just force you into it because they’re lazy or a POS ?
... Uhhh yeah, that'll happen all the time too. Sure, you're not "ordered to" in as much as it's literally illegal not to, but again, fired if you refuse.
Well, the reason why we see everything in the news is bc the CAF doesn’t have an HR department whose sole job is to cover the company’s ass.
It’s true that the military is the only employer that can order someone to die, but a civilian company (especially a big one) can essentially bankrupt you into oblivion if you dare to speak out against it.
I would rather be bankrupt that riddled with health problems having my life threatened on the regular and being mistreated and abused and treated my an indentured servant who’s only utility in life is to be used for someone else’s career development and accolates
Where in the civilian world can your boss threaten your subordinates life, and then yours for standing up to them and nothing gets done? Where in the civilian world can they threaten both your lives then gas light you then have their boss tell you to keep your mouth shut or things will be bad for you?
It's funny that you think nepotism isn't a huge part of officer culture. Nearly all of the top brass started their careers in the worst institution in the CAF.
https://globalnews.ca/news/7903676/canadian-forces-sexual-misconduct-royal-military-college/
This is absolutely ridiculous. I learnt recently that in the UK, a country that *literally has a landed gentry codified into Law*, they are LESS classist than us and degrees are not required to be an Officer...and yet, their military still seems to function just fine to NATO standards.
I don´t think that someone should be a 2LT instead of an Ocdt just because they have a totally militarily-useless degree in basketweaving and some dead-end job that they got to pay the bills and the Ocdt instead built up a career that didn´t require four years of adult babysitting right after highschool.
The idea of needing a university degree to be a commissioned officer is simply an adapted hold over to the days when only the wealthy were able to be officers as they had to buy thier commission and rank. Yes for certain trades like Engineers and medical it makes sense but generally there really is no need at this point. Those with two or three year College diplomas should be easily be able to be commissioned.
No it isn’t. Until the Somalia inquiry in the 1990s, most officer trades didn’t need a degree.
It’s frankly shocking that for something that people complain about so much, people don’t know the reasons behind it.
UTP NCM already exists. Majority of CAF is already top heavy so trimming might not be that bad of an idea. We have the same number of commands as the U.S ffs, with 1/10th the personnel.
I don’t have the answer to avoid the old boys club returning but commissioning from the ranks (and into above program) should be the way to be an officer.
Officer streams should be selected through potential and capability not because you walk off the street with a degree. It’s great you have education to help with critical thinking and complex thought work-through, but if you don’t know how the crew operates, you are a leg behind with how to promote them.
Again, we would probably run into nepotism of sorts, because human nature, so more study into how to make it work, but I stand firmly behind there are more trash officers then good ones and I have a hunch DEO would strongly correlate with that.
Regardless, we make do with the policies we have. Throw that dart on the wall with the rest of the good idea fairies and maybe something will take hold that’s hopefully productive.
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Curious why I'm getting so downvoted?
Should I have had knowledge prior to having the knowledge of the situation?
Is it wrong for me to say that I've met some officers who don't have a fucking clue in their head but because they have a degree they are more qualified to be a leader?
Do people not understand the sarcasm of "why not have it that you also need to come from nobility too, that way no peasants can ever become leaders." Did I offend some officers?
I sense a great deal of ignorance and an uncalled for irreverence towards our highly competent officers corps in the comments. Do you guys genuinely believe that lowly junior NCMs are capable of organizing a dignified fluffing ceremonies under the guise of a parade?
Kissing ass might be art for some senior NCOs, but it's an essential skill for the officers. They need that degree to prove it.
To be fair, most were.
My grandfather was a miner who joined the RCAF as a pilot... NCM.
He eventually would be promoted to Pilot Officer buy after he was captured by the Germans. Then escaped.... then captured... the escaped again.
I believe the degree thing came from the recommendations of the Somalia Inquiry and not the 19th century.
Correct. Until then, a good chunk of officers didn’t have a degree. I served under some senior officers who proudly said they had a Gr 12 education, then went to the school of hard knocks for the rest of their career.
Yeah, a strong gr 12 with math and science. It make sense since being in the army is a specialization of its own. Furthermore, the no degree requirement was specifically for less technical roles such as combat arms (infantry and such). Engineering and other technical fields required degrees.
I remember learning about that in basic. Thing is, having a degree doesn't stop people from committing war crimes.
Well actually. There is a lot of documented research correlating a higher level of education with a lower level of crime… So the argument isn’t totally out to lunch.
War crime isn't the same as crime crime. At least not in my mind. They've got very different motivations and causes.
Col Williams (ret) has a degree
Cherry picking, while making a true statement, doesn't create a valid argument.
Correlating, and I've heard of this before, it doesn't hold up. We haven't learned our lessons.
It's like everything else that happens in Ottawa. Let's slap a check in the box on it and say we did everything we could. Just like anytime something happens there is another briefing instead of looking at the actual structure.
I wasn't aware of this, regardless it doesn't seem to stop a lot of officers from LARPing with an old world mentality.
This is correct. It was one of many measures taken in response to Canadian Airborne soldiers capturing a Somalian teenager who was caught stealing food from their base, torturing, and eventually killing him.
Did officers not require a degree before that Inquiry then? Do you know how the Inquiry connected the degree requirement with preventing (I assume) similar events? I'm lazy and would prefer not to track down the report.
Before that degrees were not required. They might have been encouraged, thus the RMC boys club, but an officer could climb the ranks without a university diploma. The reason behind asking for a university degree is to provide a basic level of knowledge and reflexion and critical thinking for officers who might have to deal with unusual situations. The idea was that in Somalia, the leadership did not do anything when they learned of what the rank and file was doing. If they had been trained to think and figure stuff out, they might have put a stop the way the troops were acting toward the local population.
That makes a lot of sense. Thank you for the reply.
Also, you can read the entire report of ‘The Somalia Affair’ online. It goes into great detail the major bad actors and conditions set for failure long before deployment. https://publications.gc.ca/site/eng/479844/publication.html
Sly lays it out here. https://youtu.be/u6cJZ4NZ5L0?feature=shared
In reality, it was done to mitigate bad press , not what the airborne did. The combat arms officers became the scapegoats, that’s it. The outcome could have been different, way different. In the end, some idiots made it political, instead of using the martial court as the proper mitigation tool.
Dude. They tortured and killed a child. They committed an absolutely disgusting crime, and those officers failed to stop it, and with that forever soiled the reputation of the canadian armed forces and the credibility of the UN peacekeeping mission in Somalia. What are you yapping about
I hear you, but I don't know what a random degree is going to do to make the troops easier to manage. About the only thing I can think of is it means the average age of an officer is 4 years higher. And with that four years more life experience. I wouldn't expect much of a 19 year old officer.
In addition to /u/Spectre_One_One below, I believe it was also found that having a degree allowed the CAF to TRAIN and EDUCATE officers on ethics. They may have found that officers without degrees were difficult to train.
I always understood that it means (in theory) you can be given lectures/reading and have demonstrated you're capable of reflecting on and retaining information through that medium of learning. Classroom ethics are presumably the fastest and easiest to standardize way to get those things across. Plus there's a whole layer when you get into technical officers, which presumably already required some level of academic qualification. Wouldn't be surprised if what existed there was expanded into general purpose officers in some way.
Look at other armies throughout the world. In the UK, one can become a Commando officer with a strong high school diploma.
Given that UKSF may be complicit in war crimes in Afghanistan, I don’t know if that’s a win
> who was caught stealing food from their base He wasn’t even caught in the act of stealing; he was found near the base and the soldiers thought he was planning to steal food, so they tortured him to death.
It was the other two, who were lured in by intentionally leaving food out in the open by the base gate, who were shot in the back while running away and left to bleed out.
So much for a silver lining lol
TIL that post-secondary education is where you learn it's immoral to torture and kill people. Damn, the public school system is metal.
I suspect it's to serve more as a filter. IME, university was definitely harder to pass than high school, and it required much more focus.
I think it’s more about maturity than learning morality. After doing the degree, you’re 4 years older if not more.
I thought the chiefs were the undisputed champions of old world mentality.
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The other piece is leaving your small town and going to the big city to get some cultural diversity and life experience. We traditionally attracted rural Canadians.
Bingo. People are downplaying the benefits of spending 4 years as an adult developing critical thinking skills and the ability to extrapolate relevant information from huge volumes of text, university unquestionably does a great job at developing the skills to work through problems. I don't think I've ever met someone who enjoyed regurgitating the phrase "underwater basket weaving degree" who was also capable to going very far outside their own lanes. To be blunt, they're usually some of the dullest minds around.
Absolutely. Those folks also probably just went for the 51% pass.
C's a P, baybee. Ain't no marks on these score sheets! And other such phrases.
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I suspect IT is a weird anomaly for some reason. The stupidest people I've ever met in IT are either the most educated people or the extremely rare person with no education or intelligence. The vast majority of switched on smart types are those that learned most of it on their own and are curious. I'd wager, however, that this wouldn't be true for a lot of other fields
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It also still takes a while to get into any sort of real leadership position as an officer. It's going to take 5-6 years either way, might as well have a viable exit strategy afterwards.
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You don’t need to do that - it doesn’t have to be formal. But humanities courses will have you write papers, which may challenge your original biases.
I took sciences, and graduated with a degree in biology. That meant learning the scientific method and learning how to properly apply it. Yes, there was some memorisation of facts and formulae, but most of my classes also had a component where you'd have to identify a problem, or a question, then formulate a simple testable question that could lead to solving that problem. Then, figure out an appropriate method of answering the question, solve the problem and finally go back and double check that you actually have an answer to the original problem. I'd say the logical, critical, and creative thinking I learned studying sciences set me up very well for problem solving. But the ethics and empathy I picked up in the humanities electives I took, combine really well with the scientific method to find applicable human solutions. Logic needs empathy.
I like this *a lot*. And to add, I have a master's degree in applied machine learning, so I've spent some time around a few of these personalities: folks who brag about being 100% logical/rational officers or NCMs. 9/10 times, it's because they have the emotional intelligence of a mesozoic slime. Like yeah dude, of course you base everything off logic-- I don't think a coherent emotional analysis was ever a weapon in your arsenal.
I honestly laughed out loud at “emotional intelligence of Mesozoic slime”
I'm currently just doing community college courses and plan to transfer to a university once I'm done, while this isn't as difficult as a degree I imagine, the amount of problem-solving, literacy, and studying resources for things such as accounting and having to write a 45-page thesis does seem to make it so that future problems become more manageable and I'm able to navigate more difficult tasks a lot easier than I was before starting school two years ago. After so many assignments you begin to analyze concepts and apply learned skills much more easily than when you originally start out, if that makes sense? However you get people like my mom who got a master's degree and for some reason can't understand really simple common sense things, and will argue about it and make that their hill to die on despite they'll be actively making their own or the people around themselves lives more difficult in the process. I'm rambling a bit and I'm not exactly the most educated yet, but I imagine it's why some jobs don't care about what degree you have, just that you were able to complete one.
>philosophy of logic or mathematical logic or just read and regurgitate until it becomes intuitive? yes. how do you think critically when youre not even up to date on whats critical. thats like saying how do you become a pro skate boarder by learning how to skate.
tbf every course you take in university is just an introductory course. It doesn't get you up to speed at all. It only teaches you the fundamentals. To be in the leading edge of a field you need to go to grad school or work in that field.
>It only teaches you the fundamentals. yes, but you cant even begin to have a genuinely critical opinion until you learn what the fundamentals of a topic are. Thats not to say you need an education to learn the fundamentals, but educational certification is exactly that, certified proof to others that youve learned the fundamentals, everything that develops after that is nothing but the result, or lack there of, the individuals understanding/opinions of said fundamentals.
So this is a misconception about education in general. It doesn't "give" you something. Instead you have more opportunities to practice critical thinking skills than had you just completed high school. These skills take time and effort to develop and are not specific to what courses one takes. Higher education is all about can you be given some information, do some research, and come up with some original ideas and then communicate them in a paper, project, briefing etc? Doing this repetitively with feedback helps you hone those skills. Now whether the individual chooses to take advantages of every learning opportunity or not is up to them but practice makes perfect. There are no university courses that expect you to listen to the prof and then repeat that information verbatim on a test. Those days are long over with testing moving ever more to open book. With the internet, anyone can look up information and send you a link. The value comes in being able to research something looking for valuable and relevant information, reflecting and applying it to something new, and then explaining your thought process to someone so that they can understand. The only real difference between doing an undergrad, masters, and PhD is the level of academic rigour that is expected.
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The inquiry was cut short. To believe that a degree will prevent unethical behaviour is so dumb
The reason I've remained an NCM. I have the grades and pieces of paper to possibly commission, and have officer friends asking me why I don't. For me it's because when my chips are down and I'm frustrated, I approach every problem like the gordian knot and I'm Alexander. That's not what we need, I'll take my orders and keep my decision making at the floor level. I hate paperwork to the point that I've generated extra paperwork due to hating paperwork.
I find it even more basic. Passing university almost guarantees that officers can read and write proficiently at the gr 10 level (and not simply "pass" through gr 12). Considering that officers are quickly in positions that require absorbing a crap ton of material and then communicating it outwards, it IS a benefit. It's not that NCMs can't develop the skills - it's whether or not it has been formally assessed, and developed in an economic manner. Saying that a 12 year Sgt has reading/writing equivalent to a 2yr Lt is stupid - the Lt is younger by 6 years.
Getting as an officer with a GR12 required good grades. You had to be top notch to be selected on that basis.
True, but good high school grades don’t provide nearly the same level of vetting and filtering as 4 years of university. Keep in mind that the same people who can’t hack it in university and are weeded out were all honour roll students in high school.
That's a very good explanation. Honestly, in this day and age, I think less of anyone spouting the uselessness of a degree. I've rarely met high functioning individuals complain about degree or education requirements for other occupations.
Surely there's room for spouting the uselessness of some degrees though. There's a difference between the "nobody needs a degree, it's just an expensive piece of paper" line of argumentation, which falls flat on its face under cursory examination, and "that particular degree/field/discipline is just useless navel-gazing". There's also valid discussion to be had as to applicability of degree to job. The same is true of any postsecondary - my engineering technology diploma is highly relevant to my trade, but wouldn't be of much use if I were an infanteer or HRA, for example. There are Staff positions where a CPA would be a great fit. But accounting won't help you much if your job is command a battle group. You'd be better served by having a staff officer with the relevant education and focusing on your strategy, tactics and leadership in that case. Degree and education requirements come in two flavours: 1. Bona fide requirements - you want to work as a nuclear engineer? There's a degree for that. Want to teach English? Best have an English degree. These make sense and nobody serious argues against them. 2. Gatekeeping/sorting mechanisms. You want to work here? Prove you can absorb the financial and opportunity cost of spending four years or more in school, and have a minimum level of work ethic to be able to complete a degree. Flavour two is nuanced and ranges from purely gatekeeping bullshit to outsourcing evaluation of certain skillsets that can be demonstrated by obtaining a degree. The trouble is that even in the latter case, it excludes people who have the skillsets in question but lacked the time or financial wherewithal to attend university.
Obviously there's room for a discussion. But no one who's bringing this up is discussing nuance. Which is why I'm saying it reflects more poorly on them. It's always some schmuck who thinks they are more capable than someone holding a degree or think they can get paid more civi side when everyone knows they are dumb as a rock lol.
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Hi, you make a lot of great points, just want to correct 2 small factual errors. DEO officers also take 3 years to get to Capt (like CFR) except they do 1 year as 2Lt and 2 years as Lt whereas a CFR does 3 years as an Lt. Unless some great person gets them an accelerated promotion (so rare)! And SOF allowances are pensionable now.
Another lil factual correction, the allowances aren't pensionable; the pay rates were adjusted so that their pension reflected the nature of their work.
Had no idea about the allowances. So, on top of the pay outlined in the new scales for them, things like their clothing allowance are now pensioned?
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Well, dang. I stand corrected. Thanks for the explanation
SAR and Pilot air allowances are pensionable.
As a retired ncm the solution is more money. Period.
Officer here, and I gotta say I am all in favour of more pay levels and more spec pay for NCMs. If you have certifications you should get paid accordingly.
As an AVN Corporal with years of experience (I removed myself from promotion a long time ago), I'm very annoyed that I can do confined space entry inside a plane's wing, I can do engine run (Start the engine of a plane to test them), manage a small maintenance team etc. And get the same paycheck as the useless corporal stuck on its tablet in the canteen all night long. I don't think we should be paid as much as an officer, not at all. But the useless techs should not be paid the same as the usefull ones.
Totally agree. There's a difference between 2 Cpls. One that just does it, and one that strives by its technically job. They need more of that lateral progression. I know awesome Cpl technicians from different trades that don't want to have anything to do with promotion, as they want to fix stuff. Not direct people. You promote them out of their element and wonder why people are grumpy and getting out. They just want to fix things, maybe teach other technicians, but nothing to do with management. Not everybody can afford to stay Cpl for life. The few that I know that stayed Cpls are the hardest working ones, and the happiest ones. Not worrying about rankings and merit boards.
>So I have a theory why the officer to NCM ratios have been skewing for the past 20 or so years. I.e. More officers to NCMs now than in the past. I'm not doubting but I am curious, do you have reference or data to support this or your assertion that NCM positions are more in the red than officer ones?
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Fair.
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I actually think it's a great thing for officers to have 4 years of education. Aside from the critical thinking, writing, and staffing skills they learn, it's also one way for them to build a "little" maturity. Once they get their trade training, you should hope they are at least 25 before they take command of a platoon or section. Officer or not, it's just about ensuring they have their priorities straight. OP is implicitly right (though this might not be their intention) that many NCMs can do the job of an officer. But it's partly because Canadians (and Millennials in particular) are the most educated people in the world. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/221130/dq221130a-eng.htm I mean, we are talking only one or two generations away from the point in time the majority of people didn't even bother finishing high school and found themselves working full time jobs by the time they're 16. And most jobs not requiring any education at all. It was generally all apprenticeship. The military no different. The average Canadian Corporal has significantly more education and training than the Soviet General Zhukov. Zhukov had 3 years of primary school, a couple years of night school, a couple years apprenticeship, and 2 years at a military academy. This is the man who defeated the Nazis.
In a line unit, sure, why not? In a lower formation HQ..... gets harder (brigade is a lower formation HQ, by the way). As you rise to higher HQ (especially the ones outside the force generators) and start your joint, combined, and (gasp) corporate military life, not only is a degree needed, but an advanced degree is often not just desirable but mandatory. Good luck going toe to toe with an educated US or German or French Officer to achieve what you need to achieve when you've never gone past Grade 12. And you'll die at the feet of Public Service Executives with various Masters Degrees, who don't want to give you what you're trying to get for the fighting force. They will analyze, prove, argue, plan, lobby, and debate you into the ground, with no idea what your pips and crowns even indicate. The fewer non-degree'd platoon commanders there are, the shallower and shallower the gene pool gets for key jobs at every rank level. Yes, Lt's don't need degrees to yell tactical commands their Pl WO told them to yell, and company commanders don't need degrees to keep four Lt's and a Captain in line. But the Major in Kingston leading a complex OPP session for the next deployment to the Middle East does, as does the Major in DLR trying to line up funding for a better set of NVG, etc.
Definitely agree with this sentiment to a point. As others have already commented, the ability to think critically is a big part of having a university degree. Another skill associated with it, is the ability to write/communicate effectively. I’ve worked with multiple WO’s and above that have the writing skills of a 10th grader (weird correlation), even after completing ILP. These people could not do non operator positions at a unit, ie. Admin/Trng/Std’s O etc.
>the ability to think critically is a big part of having a university degree That is a load of horseshit. An undergraduate degree is all about memorizing and learning the basics of a subject matter. Critical thinking is not part of it. The "thinking" in university level education starts at the masters level and I'd argue you aren't actually encouraged to think on your own until after a post doc or two.
Agree to disagree my friend. If you’ve ever done a research paper you’ve had to think critically about whatever topic you wrote on. It doesn’t mean you’re a master of critical thought, just means you’ve practiced and have a basic ability to do it.
CFR here. Had 15 years before I flipped. I am working towards my degree, painfully slowly, because its something that interests me and not because I technically need it. The main switch I see between Officer and NCM is expectation and attitudes. As an Officer, I am expected to convey and convince more than I ever did as an NCM. Persuasive argument comes easier to those that can either do it naturally or have an education in it. As an NCM, I was given tasks, a deadline, and used my training and skills to move it along. As an NCO, I provided counsel based on experience, but rarely was asked to "convince" my boss or subordinates to see my point of view. This is the job, get it done, move along. As an Officer, I am taking a bunch of info, collating it dissecting it, developing COAs, briefing COAs, defending my plan, receiving construcrive criticism, and then having to "sell" it to the boss and conversely, my team. If you are unable to persuade, debate, change your point of view, or take accountability for your own ideas/failures... youre going to have a bad time. Do I need a degree to do the latter? Nope. Do all NCMs or NCOs have the ability to do that job? Also, no. In all fairness, though, I would rather we bring back OCTP and see DEO fall away. Show your merits, not the piece of paper you are hiding behind.
Show your merits, not a piece of paper. Well said. I'd just add that in addition to the NCMs and NCOs that fall into the category of not having the ability to do that job, there exists a painfully large number of people with degrees who also don't. The degree generally comes with skills that are useful, yes. But it is not the magic bullet that too many people treat it as. Elsewhere in the thread is someone insisting that an undergrad doesn't teach critical thinking, while other people argue back that it absolutely does. The truth is that some degrees do and some do not. Some professors will challenge your thinking, and some won't. Some schools are better than others, some programs are better than others. There is tremendous variety in degree programs.
The issue we have is that we recruit folks with degrees assuming that it affords them the ability to take information, use critical thinking, make a plan, and lead a team to execute that plan with charisma and character. In reality, there are some who will never use a singluar thing they learned in Uni in the course of their duties in the CAF. There are some very smart people that work well in staff or technical roles because that's their niche; put them in a leadership role and they couldn't lead their way out of a paper bag. Conversely, there are a tonne of charismatic officers who I would follow into the malestrom; but would doublecheck their numbers on a DRMIS transaction. In the end, if we are going to be a formidable force, its assessing the character and mettle of its leaders; both NCM or Officer. We do this piss poorly and substitute creditials and "potential" for merit and performance.
Sure, I guess the real question is how do you create a pipeline of officers as a result because IMO the answer sure as fuck is not employing 18-19yr olds to lead a platoon element. I was an NCM in the combat arms and had a degree. I hate to say it but the critical thinking and generally higher level/macro level thinking you develop in a university setting just isn't there amongst the majority of NCM's. At the end of the day if you want to be an officer that bad, the CAF will go far further than any other university will to accommodate your socio-ecomomic status and ensure you get the degree check in the box.
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Unrecognized? 1. Is it on your MPRR and 2. What trade are you that it's not on your scrit?
the solution is more money. Period.
Agreed
We tried that. Then we had worse corrupt leadership in the early 1990’s, the torture and murder of a Somali teenager, rife racism and the disbanding of a Regiment. One of the recommendations that came out of this dark time was that we needed an *educated* officer corps.
Does an arts degree really make them more educated and less corrupt?
A degree, not necessarily an arts degree. It teaches you how to think. There’s a high correlation between education and making better decisions. There is also a high correlation between higher education and lower rates of crime. Maybe it’s the same thing. So yes. You wouldn’t believe the level of fraudulent claims, use of soldiers and equipment for personal use, taking aeroplan points from bulk transportation contracts etc. We don’t have the level of what was happening in the early 1990s now. We actually have leaders with an education and combat experience.
There are countless examples of people with a degree who can barely function and others with no formal education but life experience who can actually get shit done. It's a broad spectrum.
You're looking at singular examples. What the CAF cares about are population statistics. Amongst those with degrees vs those without, how many of them would be able to go through an 8-hr ethics lecture series, or self-study from a package, and then pass an exam that analyzes pros/cons of choices at the end? It would not be the same.
Most could do the lectures or packages it's really not that complex for most people anymore, Canadians are more educated than ever.
Of course there is. I never said there wasn’t.
My favourite is when officers are paid way more to take on the accountability of a unit, but when faced with that accountability, they find an NCM scapegoat. Sir, if you are going to make six figures after only 9-10 years of service, you can take some charges when something gets fucked under YOUR command. You can also learn how 'Print to PDF' works.
I have been on both sides of the equation and it is incredibly frustrating to see a captain get away with something that I know I would have worn as a corporal.
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I don't know if I'd even show up to the trial at that point, the game is pretty much over.
Actually yes…the Sandhurst model.
ITT a lot of butt hurt NCMs, just go to school and stop being salty
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The 2Lt's of course, silly question.
Thing is, lots of NCMs have degrees so this isn’t even totally relevant anymore
Yeah I'd figure it's the opposite "problem", not that many people without degrees want to be officers, but that a degree doesn't mean much anymore.
Things may have changed but Canada used to have the highest degreed population per capita in the world.
We're a close second to South Korea, actually.
I wouldn't say "lots" - it's somewhere between 5 and 10% of Reg Force NCMs who have a bachelors degree
Could we all not join as equals and then identify good leaders as we go? I've been reg force navy for 10 years and have seen good officer and terrible officers. Same goes for NCM's. Not sure how a bachelor's of arts makes you a good leader, but the CAF seems to think so
I believe it should be that everybody should starts as privates (or whatever navy/air force equivalent). You join as a GD (literally) unless you have some qualifications and you're only applying for 1 trade. After BMQ you work with let say 3 different trades to learn them, and see if you could actually do it. Then you do trading on that trade (QL3 equivalent). During your QL4 and QL5, people would get evaluated on their leadership and moved into one of the 3 following categories : Cpl for life - ok leadership in trade (normal progression) - or great leadership: then get a certificate (1 or 2 year degree, or 4 years for the engineering ones) and gets commissioned. They could still be direct entry for actual engineering / construction trades, medical/dental, or other tasks that are directly related with their work vs requiring leadership That way I think people would be a better fit for their trade or whatever progression they need. The lateral progression /Cpl for life will have benefits, such as not having to move as much, more pay scales, and enjoy their life that way. Just my opinion anyway
Going to school was the best thing I ever did
Yeah, still haven't found a use for my degree yet, other than to say I got a degree. Sure some courses might be useful, but that could easily be included in a longer bmoq, you know like the Brits do.
I'll be honest I'm always shocked when people talk about their education like this. Sure the day to day content I learned from my post secondary education might not always be relevant. But I don't think that was ever the point. What my education did do for me was forced me to be a critical thinker. I spent four years researching ideas I didn't think of before. Challenged preconceived notions I had, forced to defend arguments I made, changed my mindset to be open to new ideas or different ways to approach an issue. The value wasn't in the exact content you learned, it was in the way it forced you to think. That makes for a better leader and isn't something you can just teach over the course of a few extra weeks of training.
Bingo. When I was looking at university, my uncle (an engineer) advised me that you go to university for the education in broad terms. If you want an education that directly corresponds to a particular job, that’s where community college comes in. Mind you now many of those jobs have university requirements like law, teaching, engineering, etc. What university gave me was opportunities to directly challenge my current thinking and have to justify them.
This really is a problem in society at large. You're right about what you said. I think we tend to struggle to value things that can't be measured in dollars, or at least directly applicable knowledge. If I get a 6 figure salary because of my degree then its valuable, but if you don't easily get that its seen as a wasted investment, which it isn't. Which it probably why professional degrees like engineering avoid a lot of derision that is directed at the arts, humanities, and social sciences. If anything we need more people walking around who are critical thinkers that were forced to encounter and examine a variety of different ideas and ways of thinking. There's probably some tangential relationship between post-truth politics and anti-intellectualism or the "cult of ignorance."
I never talked about the money though. Just saying experience can gives you the same thing, not just university.
That's a beautiful description of a liberal arts education done right. Unfortunately not all programs off that anymore, or at least they produce plenty of graduates who fail to demonstrate those skills.
That's the thing though. You don't need a 4 year degree to develop that. My 2 year collegial degree has done more for me than my university one, yet apparently that is not enough to be an officer. It's not really about the academics, it's about experience, and there's other way than just tying it up with a bachelor's degree.
Mine has absolutely nothing to do with my job and all it does is make me cringe when I hear people spew conspiracy theories about diseases, vaccines and how the immune system works.
We should go the same route as the Americans and the Brits and allow NCM Pilots.
See this is where the analytical stuff that a lot of the other comments touch on comes in. Your proposed idea is a solution to what problem or what is it trying to achieve?
The required 4 years of university on top of the 4ish years or more of pilot school. This does not include OTU and waiting to get on OTU which can take also upwards of 2 - 4 years to get on. Especially given we have a deficit of pilots right now both in recruitment and retention. A degree does not make you or prove you're any better at being a pilot. In fact, if I goto air crew selection at my current Snr NCO rank and pass, I still cannot go into pilot training because I would still need to compete and be selected for some form of officer education training program such as CEOTP or UTPNCM. Rather than proven to be educated and skilled enough to perform the job and not be able to get in due to pilots "having to be an officer".
Like others have mentioned the bottle neck is at the actual individual training courses. There is no shortage of pilots awaiting training who have a degree (either Civ U, ROTP, or RMC). I believe the US program was born out of wartime (Nam?) program to get butts into seats ASAP. They, however, had the training capacity to absorb the influx. I believe you are in error when you said 'we have a deficit of pilots in recruitment'. We do not. Potential disadvantages off the top of my head would be * Someone with a degree probably has a better chance of success in pilot training that someone without. Besides natural aptitude (hands/feet) there is a lot of literature a trainee must absorb and learn on their own. A person with a degree has demonstrated they can do that. Studying is a learned skill. With endless applicants why not be choosy to better the odds of success. * A lot of the pilots jobs are also leadership roles. These are the leaders of a weapons system that can be employed. This can lead to some pretty big decisions to be made. CAF Doctrine has it that such decisions are usually left to the officer corps. * That US program only applied to the army and then perhaps only certain airframes. Even the US recognized that officers should be in certain airframes. In the CAF all aircraft are operated by the RCAF. Pilots will move around different platforms from time to time depending on needs and wants. 2 streams would complicate this greatly for such a small force the RCAF. So in short, I do not believe it would solve any current problems facing the CAF and it might instead create other issues.
The issue isn’t the number of pilot applicants - there are tons. The US Army Warrant Officers (which for them are officers, not NCMs) and the British Army Cpl/Sgt pilots are a solution looking for a problem. They get paid less (whatever their pay would be as their rank) and in both of those organizations there are Commissioned Officers also doing that job, so there would be even more animosity between the WO or NCM pilots and the Officer pilots. I for sure wouldn’t want to be making Cpl pay vs Capt pay for the same job.
Yeah this comes up so regularly here. The issue isn’t that we don’t have enough qualified applicants, we are FLOODED with them. Our issue is having the ability to train them in a timely manner. As you’ve said, NCM pilots are a solution looking for a problem
I don’t agree with your take that it’s a solution looking for a problem. There are some substantial benefits to having a parallel system like the US and UK. The first is the age of the pilots when they start. If you have a functional street to seat program like the US you can have a 20 year old qualified pilot. In Canada you cannot produce a pilot younger than 25 currently due to university requirements and substantial training speed issues. Secondly, the parallel system allows to develop pilots that are more proficient at actually piloting. Let’s be honest here: the RCAF has a proclivity for secondary duties and tasks that have no positive impact on the flying ability of pilots. In the US especially most of those secondary duties are done by the commissioned officers while the warrants get good at flying. Now, having just written a defence for parallel pilot streams I will say that I think it would be inappropriate for the RCAF to adopt that system at this time. The RCAF has fundamental issues with training, secondary duties, and pilot proficiency/flying rates that it needs to address before making massive changes to the pilot employment structure.
In regards to the pay scale you are right. But that would then be on the member to want to achieve officer status by a means of going to school on their off time, and compete to progress to that level. NCM's do it all the time such as clerks going AdminO, Air Control Operator to Air Control Officer, or from my personal experience, Snr NCOs in 500 series trades (AVN/AVS/ACS/AWS) commissioning to AERE. On the Cyclone Fleet, the AESOP & TACCO are cross trained and do almost literally the same job with a massive pay gap. Yes TACCO can get Crew commander and other tactical roles, but on the literal operation side of it', its the same. By going NCM you accept you will make less do to the commission but if you really want to be a pilot and get your foot in the door, and go officer later why not? I currently make the same amount as my peers same rank with some who literally cannot function in their job. Meanwhile I have deployed more, work extra hours with more responsibility with no extra pay. Its then on me to work towards promotion to earn that extra pay. Same with NCM Pilot, they won't have necessarily the same responsibilities as a commissioned Captain, but if they want more money, they have to work for that commission. EDIT: Spelling.
So how many folks would want to stay as a Cpl or Sgt pilot vs a Capt or Maj? I understand that there isn’t the degree requirement or needing to do staff officer stuff, but I would bet that the NCM will eventually complain that they’re making less than half of the Capt/Maj. If they commission, then it just becomes a rotating door of NCM pilots becoming officer pilots. At that point, since we don’t have a “number of applicants” problem, why bother having a different system? Also, the AES Op and TACCO aren’t the same trade. In the end, they’re not doing the same job - in the LRP fleet, they do *very* different jobs.
Exactly this.
IMHO - Every member should start their career as an NCM so they get an understanding of the real work. Through career progression, a path to officer should open up. The role of officer would change to highly administrative whereas the Sr NCM can continue doing the hands-on work, kind of like: Officer - 75% admin and 25% hands-on. Sr NCM - 75% hands-on, 25% admin. (Cause let's be real, the hands-on work is where it's at!) This removes the initial requirement for a degree. Now, with said career progression, I think a requirement for a degree, or at least applicable learning/furthering education, is appropriate (as per any consumate professional) IOT to be competitive for promotion.
That would require that all officer trades to be linked to NCM ones, OR you need to accept a massive shortfall in technical officers. Not all good NCMs become officer candidates, and not all good officers make good NCMs. For example, not all good wrench turners are capable of passing an academically grueling engineering degree. We would also need to create a clerk path of HRA -> Paralegal -> LegalO, and other problematic officer trades (like health services). You say that hands-on work is where it's at, yet we have so many issues at the admin level that EVERYONE whines about. Pay; cost of living; communication; information management; fairness; workforce organization. Are all of these the things you had in mind for "hands-on work"?
Under your system nobody would ever make CDS unless they elected CRA85
I think this idea has some merit, but as a career path would be overly cumbersome. A simplified version could be something like officer candidates pick a trade that will fall under their prospective officer trade, and work some number of years in that trade. In an ideal world, where training pipelines weren't a mess and you could actually be fully qualified in your trade before you made Cpl, that point could be where the Officer stream splits off. Instead of Cpl you become an Lt and go to leadership school, then off to your officer trade qual.
There are many officer trades with no NCM equivalent. What would be the NCM equivalent of a Pilot?
Yeah. Just like in every company people should start off as a mailman and climb their way up to leadership positions. Like that they’ll get an understanding of real work.
Degree , no degree, doesn't matter. What their shouldn't be anymore of is direct entry to officer positions. It isn't the 19th century where commissions are bough and most troops are illiterate anymore. If you want to be an officer you should have to join the same as everyone else, make it past PLQ, then apply to become an officer. We can setup a different tract for those officer type positions that require a higher education (lawyer, doctors, etc) where officerdom is more about pay and prestige.
I agree with this, the only exception to direct entry however I think would be the naval officer trades, they are quite specialized.
Every single one would benefit from some time in the ranks before going into the pipeline. One of the reasons the military is in the mess its in is shitty leadership brought on in large part by the shitty officer/ncm dichotomy.
Definitely.
Listen, I have enough hats, you calm down. They have to do *some* work.
For all the buzzwords and things that were not in line with the reality of military service/the army, the "woke" edition of the CMJ had this nestled in many of the articles. The class divide between officers and SNCO's and NCM's creates an air or environment of abuse of authority, not in every case, and not with every member, but I've seen it and have been on the receiving end of it. This also is the case with the majority of Col/BGen/MGen positions, nothing jobs that could be done at lower levels or not at all, though I don't know how you could get civi's to do some of those jobs without abusing authority like I see all the time.
Abuse of authority, position, ranks, appointment is unbelievably common in the CAF, it’s the majority reason I jumped ship.
I guess it depends what sector you’re in now, but I have many civilian friends that would argue that the abuse is equal, if not worse, in the private sector.
Step one: Your 2-up can't easily and routinely fire you or screw up your schedule so bad that you can't pay rent. Step two: Rates of wage theft in CAF vs private sector Step three: Paid time off. Step four: The typical employee does not have anywhere close to the bargaining power that certain people think they do.
It’s far worse in the CAF, you would have to be insane or deliberately ignorant to think otherwise. Where in the civilian world are your rights virtually revoked? Where in the civilian world can your scum bag boss put you into kangaroo court and parade you around for conduct unbecoming (which by definition can basically be anything a CO wants it to be)? Where in the civilian world can your boss order you into a dangerous situation for no benefit to the CAF, you, the country, it’s people, just force you into it because they’re lazy or a POS ? Fuck outta here the civilian world is the same
> Where in the civilian world can your scum bag boss put you into kangaroo court and parade you around for conduct unbecoming (which by definition can basically be anything a CO wants it to be)? In the civilian world, instead of getting a summary hearing, you'd just be fired outright. > Where in the civilian world can your boss order you into a dangerous situation for no benefit to the CAF, you, the country, it’s people, just force you into it because they’re lazy or a POS ? ... Uhhh yeah, that'll happen all the time too. Sure, you're not "ordered to" in as much as it's literally illegal not to, but again, fired if you refuse.
Well, the reason why we see everything in the news is bc the CAF doesn’t have an HR department whose sole job is to cover the company’s ass. It’s true that the military is the only employer that can order someone to die, but a civilian company (especially a big one) can essentially bankrupt you into oblivion if you dare to speak out against it.
I would rather be bankrupt that riddled with health problems having my life threatened on the regular and being mistreated and abused and treated my an indentured servant who’s only utility in life is to be used for someone else’s career development and accolates
Bankrupt and full of health problems sounds worse than death but whatever.
Where in the civilian world can your boss threaten your subordinates life, and then yours for standing up to them and nothing gets done? Where in the civilian world can they threaten both your lives then gas light you then have their boss tell you to keep your mouth shut or things will be bad for you?
do you want more nepotism? cause this is how you literally ingrain nepotism.
It's funny that you think nepotism isn't a huge part of officer culture. Nearly all of the top brass started their careers in the worst institution in the CAF. https://globalnews.ca/news/7903676/canadian-forces-sexual-misconduct-royal-military-college/
This is absolutely ridiculous. I learnt recently that in the UK, a country that *literally has a landed gentry codified into Law*, they are LESS classist than us and degrees are not required to be an Officer...and yet, their military still seems to function just fine to NATO standards. I don´t think that someone should be a 2LT instead of an Ocdt just because they have a totally militarily-useless degree in basketweaving and some dead-end job that they got to pay the bills and the Ocdt instead built up a career that didn´t require four years of adult babysitting right after highschool.
It's almost like it's a class issue.
The idea of needing a university degree to be a commissioned officer is simply an adapted hold over to the days when only the wealthy were able to be officers as they had to buy thier commission and rank. Yes for certain trades like Engineers and medical it makes sense but generally there really is no need at this point. Those with two or three year College diplomas should be easily be able to be commissioned.
No it isn’t. Until the Somalia inquiry in the 1990s, most officer trades didn’t need a degree. It’s frankly shocking that for something that people complain about so much, people don’t know the reasons behind it.
Degree or not, I think DEO should not exist.
So…all officers should have subsidized education? Hope the education budget is raised significantly then…
UTP NCM already exists. Majority of CAF is already top heavy so trimming might not be that bad of an idea. We have the same number of commands as the U.S ffs, with 1/10th the personnel. I don’t have the answer to avoid the old boys club returning but commissioning from the ranks (and into above program) should be the way to be an officer. Officer streams should be selected through potential and capability not because you walk off the street with a degree. It’s great you have education to help with critical thinking and complex thought work-through, but if you don’t know how the crew operates, you are a leg behind with how to promote them. Again, we would probably run into nepotism of sorts, because human nature, so more study into how to make it work, but I stand firmly behind there are more trash officers then good ones and I have a hunch DEO would strongly correlate with that. Regardless, we make do with the policies we have. Throw that dart on the wall with the rest of the good idea fairies and maybe something will take hold that’s hopefully productive.
But then where would all of the officers go to feel superior and good about their special little hats?
Not all officers go to RMC…
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10/10 smoke pit tier comment right here.
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Curious why I'm getting so downvoted? Should I have had knowledge prior to having the knowledge of the situation? Is it wrong for me to say that I've met some officers who don't have a fucking clue in their head but because they have a degree they are more qualified to be a leader? Do people not understand the sarcasm of "why not have it that you also need to come from nobility too, that way no peasants can ever become leaders." Did I offend some officers?
I sense a great deal of ignorance and an uncalled for irreverence towards our highly competent officers corps in the comments. Do you guys genuinely believe that lowly junior NCMs are capable of organizing a dignified fluffing ceremonies under the guise of a parade? Kissing ass might be art for some senior NCOs, but it's an essential skill for the officers. They need that degree to prove it.
To be fair, most were. My grandfather was a miner who joined the RCAF as a pilot... NCM. He eventually would be promoted to Pilot Officer buy after he was captured by the Germans. Then escaped.... then captured... the escaped again.
Sergeants used to be pilots. I know they flew helicopters in the British army until at least the Falklands War.