Debate Compiled by Col Vinay Dalvi
BACKGROUND
The perceived inadequacy in the quality of ‘Professional Military Education’ (PME) provided to officers of the Indian Armed Forces has been a long-standing point of contention that has
Been advocated passionately by the ‘Victory India Campaign’ and 'MVI' for over a decade; but routinely brushed under the carpet due to organizational pride. Being a long felt and imperative professional need our system of PME followed for cadets at academies and military officers at various training institutions has often come up for objective debate amongst serving officers and veterans.
These debates have during the past decade thrown up various perceptions of what's wrong and what should be done. Several well researched published articles have also given accurate pictures of the prevailing reality and the corrective measures that need to be taken. The subject has once again come up for debate through some meaningful interactions between few serving officers and keen professional veterans.
TRIGGER - COL PRADEEP DALVI
Recently, I had an intimate discussion with a serving officer who was on leave. He gave me great updates on changes that have taken place in imparting knowledge on courses of instructions.
I, being an old Senior Comd Wing Instructor at AWC, Mhow was greatly impressed with the uptake of younger generation. Some points are:
1. Every officers has PC/ Laptop in his room starting from JC. No paperwork, everything is paperless starting from Ex instruction to solutions by officers to issue of pamphlets.
2.Officers are taking coaching classes for doing well on courses like JC, DSSC, SC,etc . These are not comd pre staff courses but pvt courses run by senior officers. Officers are paying around 30000/- to coaches to get AXi in JC course. DSSC, the fees are more. These coaches are retd senior officers.
3. No PCK required. Everything is provided by the coaches. I don't know if this unauthorized trg/ coaching is approved by MT/ ARTRAC. This is just the tip of the iceberg, I believe?
RESPONSES
BRIG NEIL JOHN
The funny thing is that it’s not what we provide the officers and how the officers cope up. The content in most military courses is 60% applicable and 40% trash.
That’s a high wastage rate in terms of time.
The senior command course is the most skewed. It was to make an officer capable enough to command his unit. Empowering him with the right tools, topics were man management, administration, financial management, Works procedures, leadership, and basic brush on tactics.
Tactics was to be only 20% of the curriculum. Somewhere down the line we lost the plot. Now tactics is 80% and the rest of management tools 20%.
We need to remember it’s a short course attended by all officers of all services, serving in all kinds of terrain, with all going to tenet different roles in command. To get them on a common grid now just before command and do what JC and Staff College couldn’t, is itself an act of futility.
It’s a mess!
MAJ GEN RAJ MEHTA
Our Professional Military Education (PME) is most inadequate and has been in this sorry state but for personality driven islands of excellence.
The matchup between MT, ARTRAC, Cat a Training Establishments and field armies is messy.
What ARTRAC produces as lessons in CALL - field formations discard as unrealistic! What they produce as Nark and Chandal narratives don’t jell with reality.
We know all this but paper it over. The fact that most countries are in the same mess seems strangely assuring!
Brig Neil has said it. I said it years ago and repeat myself, but Col Vinay Dalvi had my views as a published article. Not much has changed.
PDF att for ready reference.
I don’t see much change. The least of them being that students are now pc driven. In USA there is anger against PC and PPTs both and has been for long. The student must speak, not make a dolled up PPT, so must the instructor but for data interludes where a PPT slide is a must.
Lastly, why are we fixated on Training? War is about Education, a thinking response of which Training is a small part.
Contingency planning is Education. A small part of it is a drill. A trained Pavlovian response...no more. War is all contingency. All of war!
We train our students. Where all do we educate them. We should now - do education more than training!
GP CAPT JOHNSON CHACKO
The LDMC was for teaching officers how to enhance combat effectiveness when they pick up command of a Bn, Sqn, or Ship. Students were supposed to be Maj eqvt.
The course is one year long. Ideally placed after command as time before that is too crowded! It is considered as a reward for a good command!
When we discuss methodologies, techniques, etc., the comment is "Why wasn't I told this before?"
A convenient parking slot for good COs waiting for their next promotion.
There is a need for reviewing all courses and integrating Joint Warfare so that a qualified theatre Commander can emerge.
MAJ GEN RAJ MEHTA
We reinforce mediocrity and then wonder why things are out of kilter. PCK till recently was countered with a Nelson's eye, lanyards and berets were given precedence. So you got an AI or equivalent on courses but did not get peer respect.
In an education driven PME forthrightness, disagreeing with logic, directive over centralised command and working out unexpected war events would be the norm, not pinks access or brazen compliance !
Where the focus is on grading over learning education is throttled, and mediocrity rules.
GP CAPT JOHNSON CHACKO
The staff college entrance exam is essentially assessing the analytical ability of the prospective student. Instructors are called Directing Staff who direct the discussion to open a window to analyse the setting in the exercise that follows. There are no right answers. The analytical process on how the student officers reach the conclusion is what is important.
At the end of the course, I divided the Air wing into syndicates and asked each of them to design an exercise along with pinks. It was called Ex Samarthya. It was well received. It avoids PCK as the students don't know which year exercise will be given.
DSSC and CDM open a window. How much the individual develops on that and uses it should decide the numbers he gets in ACR. Application is the key. These courses enhance capability. Performance commensurate with Capability is what needs to be assessed. Not just labels such as PSC or HDMC.
BRIG NEIL JOHN
There are a lot of tangibles and intangibles. Military leadership is often fixated with ideas that, in their perception are viable, not viable, prudent, or essential. These depend completely on leadership exposure and the need. Everyone wants change in his tenure. Everything is short-sighted, lacks continuity, too personality oriented, and lacks intelligent growth. I am sorry to say that we are losing out on exemplary on the ground leadership, to the army HQ multiple tenure trained babu clad in military uniform. Who doesn’t know the difference between operating on the LC to what happens on the LAC.
Once again, I reiterate that someone needs to take a graphical analytical representation of today’s senior military leadership.
The number of formative years spent in areas where they have commanded men and material in peace and field viz a viz multiple army HQ and institutional tenures due to spoken reputation and the lanyard culture. The latter win hands down.
The ones that work on the ground and are in the knowhow of what is actually required are not in decision-making positions or positions that allow you to make a change. Those that are, have no major field exposure or have only minimal exposure due to HQ and institutionalised postings. They go by changes their bosses want or mention, or what looks good on their profile.
We seriously need to have capability built promotions with a 360-degree grading pattern. Performance appraisals need to be realistic and not only supplement the yes men.
To bring the change we need even in training and military educational programmes, we need officers that have the guts and the balls. The officers can stand up and point out mediocrity. Course gradings get you good postings. They don’t necessarily get you exposure and experience. DSSC entrance exam is the first biggest wrong step. How do you separate the wheat from the chaff ?
70% needs to be on high meritorious 360 degree recommendations and 30% on other elements like course gradings, etc. Just because an officer gets a year to study doesn’t make him better than that officer who slugs it out at his post.
I am of the firm opinion that we have lost out on superior military leadership and we need to GET MILITARY LEADERSHIP BACK. The evil is in the grading system not only on courses but also in promotion boards.
NIXON FERNANDO
Incidentally, this difference that Brig Neil John points out is also a bane of the civil services. British India had two kinds of officers the field officers who were running collector offices and dealing with on ground situations and those sitting in offices in the secretariat who were doing the stuff on behalf of the higher ups. Proximity to higher ups has its 'advantages'. Eventually, the field officers lose out and we are left with a system with young officers of around 35 years or even much younger heading districts. And Mr. Seshan calls his tenure as collector as most satisfying because of the opportunities it gave him to serve as an administrator.
I suppose for a soldier, command at the field should likewise be the best he gets to be. A 360-degree assessment can, therefore, turn the tables in favor of field officers.
Too many 'babu' tenures at the secretariat or the headquarters should serve as a disqualification for higher promotion regardless of outstanding performance grades reflected in the grading system.
There is need for reform in both the Civil services and the Military leadership systems. The best minds in the nation should give time for this and come out with solutions that can rectify this anomaly.
COL PRADEEP DALVI
With reference to the above responses, most courses are PCK and grading driven. In SC Course, there are ink two headings Q and Qi yet all students are preparing for their written exams and sand models/ Ex based on terrain. It is one course where you can learn from fellow students who have expert domain knowledge of their Arm. Unfortunately, 90% of officerss have no idea of man mgmt and are pulverised at the thought of commanding 800 bodies. Most of them have few years of regimental service and have been away on courses, ERE, RR, and other tenures. Inf officerss are biggest culprits as their knowledge is restricted up to pl/coy level tactics. In one HC course the entire war game was repeated because their knowledge of Armr/ Mech/ Arty and Sp arms was found wanting. These officerss after HC course go on to hold higher ranks and assignments. So, at what level are we going to start their upgrade. It is easier to pass judgments but the fact is we need to spread awareness and knowledge at early stage. There are cases where Inf officers are commanding Armd Div/ Strike corp without acclimatisations and adequate knowledge.
COL VIJAY BHATE
I fully agree with Col Pradeep Dalvi . As per my experience, leave alone other arms officers being not aware of other than their own arm ARTY officers ,when AD was not separate, not having any basic know how about use of AD GUNS . So sad !
BRIG NEIL JOHN
On the last portion of Col Pradeep Dalvi’s note .
There are Instructor courses which are run by respective arms, the JC course, there are specialist courses in each arm like the LGSC, CT, CG courses, ALMC, and these are meant to get all officers to think logically of military options in varied terrain. The DSSC brings all of them together to include the tri services to think two rungs higher. All about tactics and integrating war like means.
The SC (senior command course) is specifically for all officers going to command their units.
The units are in the field, in peace, in CI, in HAA, in deserts and in the North east. The going to be commanding officers are from infantry, armored, mechanised infantry, artillery, engineers, ASC, AOC, intelligence, AD, signals, etc.
The component of tactics required to be taught to them should be commensurate to their employment in command. If they haven’t learnt till now, what makes you think they will pick up wisdom in 3 months? Peer learning in SC is 15%, and that too of what is someone’s perception of a given terrain and the employment within, not necessarily the military way or the right way.
The SC course is meant to make you command capable. Command is 90% man management and administration and 10% tactics.
There are officers who still don’t know what a long roll looks like or what a 958 is. Trust me, I just came from a place where there were commanding officers who had never seen a clothing card.
BRIG PRADEEP SHARMA
Courses were reviewed about two decades ago and were to be once again restructured to fit the environmental needs. However, the Army has been so quagmired in petty politics that the major and more relevant issues have been lost sight of.
GP CAPT TP SRIVASTAVA
We reinforce mediocrity by adopting a blind assessment system, where everyone is graded 9 and above. Also, NDA posting Comdt downwards are mostly parking slots until a suitable posting in the operational unit. It is we, who have messed up training standards by treating training as an adjunct to operations.
Until we reform this, nothing is going to change not only in NDA but other trg establishment as well!
LT COL MK GUPTA RAY
Ref response of Brig Neil John.
Well written! I agree!
Real use of brain, initiative, planning, dynamism, impromptu decision, spontaneous change in application of tactics, and battle drill can be applied in battle ground with a spark of fertile brain and ingenuity.
BRIG PRADEEP SHARMA
In 2005, I was tasked with the responsibility of giving a presentation on 'A Paradime Shift in Training for the Indian Army'. I was then the BGS Training at HQ ARTRAC. This was first made to all officers at ARTRAC itself and then with a few changes to the officers across the Indian Army at a Training Conference held at MHOW, Army War College. As a follow-up, I sent copies to various Army Cdrs under a personal DO. While it was acknowledged by them, nothing changed! 19 years later, we are debating the same topic! Odd, isn't it?
WAY AHEAD ...LET DEBATE CONTINUE...
Do the above responses give a true overview of PME in our officer training academies and military training institutions for officers at all levels starting from NDA / IMA/ OTA/ AFA/ INA right up to NDC including AWC, DSSC, CDM, CAW, CNW ,etc..? If not what is the true picture in your perception? Kindly respond to enable continuation of this debate to form a full true and objective picture of the reality on ground and required corrections to be made to improve the quality of our PME.
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