FJAG
Army.ca Legend
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I was on board with you up to that point. My problem comes with the four-year university requirement.... After competing the long, gruelling “basic leadership/selection” course the candidates will be commissioned as Acting Sub-Lieutenant or 2nd Lieutenants and will go off to university for four years. ...
I understand how the Somalia crisis got us to that point and I do understand the benefits of a broad general education. I just don't buy the fact that sending someone to a civilian university (or a four-year RMC program) will provide a sufficient enough benefit to the Forces to justify making someone spend four prime years of their service life in a diversion.
There is nothing that four years of university will teach you that a concentrated one-year Sandhurst-like program won't if you tailor the program right. It also gives you the ability to create an initial assessment of which of your candidates are destined for leadership, which are destined for higher "management" and which ones should be shown the door.
The engineers and other specialists that we need can be brought in through DEO programs.
If we have officers that do wish to avail themselves of a higher education then there are numerous extension programs available to them. RMC could offer the Sandhurst program and CDA the extension programs tailored to benefit senior defence and public service leadership.