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Royal Australian Navy leadership and industry experts have discussed training and recruitment issues facing Australia at the Indo Pacific 2023 International Maritime Exposition.
Rear Admiral Justin Jones from RAN, Rear Admiral James Lybrand from Australian Defence College, and Dr Teresa Crea from University of NSW spoke during a forum chaired by Rear Admiral (ret’d) Simon Ancona from CAE Defence & Security on 7 November.
Australia is seeking to be at the forefront of readiness and training is the central pillar of readiness; however, maritime training is the most complex (of the domains), said Ancona.
It now incorporates the entire broad scope of the maritime battlespace as well as category A nuclear training needed for Australia’s upcoming submarine fleet; in a domain that is already difficult to replicate without deployed joint task groups.
The maritime domain, as well as defence at large, is experiencing a rush to develop and utilise new technology, according to Dr Crea.
The current speed of technological development is outpacing training of trainees and current knowledge of trainers. There is a need to understand new technology and how to teach it to the next generation of recruits, she said.
Training institutions must move from transactional education into transformational education, by adapting to a micro-skilling approach utilising individual learning and individual performance monitoring, she said.
RADM Lybrand said there is a need for Defence to focus on retaining the “missing middle” or people who have completed initial training and stay in defence education until middle level management.
The college currently have 2,000 full time students, 2,000 in short courses, and around 5,000 in leadership and ethics courses, he said.
