HOW TO MANAGE QUALITY TRAINING
...training environment must be prepared for training. Thus, they should be pre-tested to find out their training needs, while the trainers prepare themselves as fully as possible to teach the subjects they will present. Trainers must also coordinate, obtain, set up and check out the facilities, materials and equipment they will need for training sessions. c. Training Standards. When soldiers arrive in the training areas, the trainers must tell them exactly what task they will be taught, and what standards are expected out of them. Soldiers should understand that they will be tested on their ability to display those standards and should be cautioned about safety of personnel and equipment. d. Training Stages. Soldiers should apply what they have learnt, by actually performing the assigned tasks. Generally this is the most critical phase. The first practice activity should be closely controlled by the trainer and should be geared to the soldiers’ level of training at the time. As the training proceeds, trainers can add speed, more equipment and more challenging tasks until the soldiers can actually perform to the required standards. Each session should be followed by a proper critique. The clock should not decide when training should stop rather it should continue until the soldiers can achieve the desired level of teamwork and proficiency. The training itself should be made progressively more difficult to challenge the soldiers’ increased abilities. e. Tactically and Technically Correct Training. Needless to say, the trainers must know their subjects and must be able to perform all of the tasks they ask their soldiers to perform. Being professionally sound enables them to prepare better training better coaching and critique better response to questions and improve their general credibility as trainers and leaders. f. Realism. The ultimate in training realism is fighting an actual enemy force. In peacetime, though units must accept a lesser form of realism - one that comes as close as possible to combat conditions without risking lives. Units that are expected to fight as part of a combined arms team must train as members of the team. Teamwork must be emphasized to defeat a likely enemy force. During training periods, each unit should use all the equipment it plans to go to war with. Too much realism in the early stages of training may be wasted, because soldiers may not have mastered their basic tasks, but once they have mastered them, realism and complexity should be added to the unit’s training program as quickly as the soldiers can benefit from the addition. g. Conducted by Leaders. Soldiers are expected to follow their leaders in combat therefore they should be trained by them during peace. The leader of any group of soldiers should consider his training session an opportunity to impose his will on his unit and to shape it into the kind of team he would go to war with.. Leaders must always be involved in the unit’s training’ even when they are not formally presenting training, they can critique, counsel and set proper examples for their subordinates to follow. This does not mean that some training should not be centralized at higher levels because of a shortage of experienced first line trainers or because of other factors; it means that a unit’s leaders must be involved to the greatest possible extent in the training of their soldiers. h. Address Known Weakness. There is little point in conducting training on tasks that the soldiers already do well or on those that are unrelated to a unit’s wartime mission. Training should be conducted only when it will improve the desired performance. Realistic and challenging training motivates soldiers and well–motivated soldiers learn more quickly and remember longer. Awards and other forms of recognition can also be used to motivate them to learn and do well. If they are interested and firmly committed to learn their skills, trainers will not have to work as hard or as long to teach them. If soldiers believe that the training is important to them personally, they will readily absorb new skills and will pay more attention to details, practice on their own and critique themselves and each other, but if the soldiers believe that their time is being wasted, little learning will take place. j. Basics First. Learning fundamental tasks first, will allow the soldiers to master more complex tasks more easily and will help them to remember how to do them. Training should not move on to the more ad...