An Cosantóir

18 | Military Skills Acknowledged I Picture are (l/r): Mr David Denieffe (Registrar IT Carlow), Mr Dorel Picovici, Mr Eugene Carbery (Head of Electronic, Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering (EMA) Dept.), Col Peter O���Halloran (D CIS), Mr Brian McQuaid (Head of School Electronic, Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering), Sgmn Cian Young (1 CIS), Pte William Nugent (Ord Corps), Sgmn Keith Houlihan (2 CIS), Pte Ryan Talbot (Ord Corps), Sgmn Colin McKenna (CIS Gp DFTC), Mr Keith Smyth, Mr Frank Fennelly, Lt Paul Shorte (TTS Course Coordinator/ Lecturer) & Comdt Michael Moore (Chief Technical Instructor CIS School). Front row (l/r): President of IT Carlow Dr Patricia Mulcahy, Col William Dwyer (EO DFTC), Chairman of ITC Governing Body Mr John Moore & Col Anthony Bracken (DF Registrar). n September 2012, after some five years in development and following painstaking research and examination, programmes for the validation of enlisted career courses in the Army and Air Corps were approved by the Higher Education Training and Awards Council (HETAC) for awards on the National Framework of Qualifications (NFQ). It has long been a strategic goal of the Defence Forces to achieve this milestone and all associated with its delivery deserve the highest praise. This initiative can be traced to the White Paper on Defence 2000 which stated that the organisation seeks ���...to ensure that members of the Permanent Defence Force have qualifications which will enhance their job prospects on leaving the Defence Forces��� and that ���All personnel will be provided with the opportunity for personal development and associated professional experience in order to realise their full potential during their service in the Defence Forces.��� An Cosant��ir March 2013 www.dfmagazine.ie These sentiments were further developed by the Working Group on Accreditation, Training and Education in the Defence Forces 2007, when it stated: ���External accreditation and verification of capabilities will ensure that the educational and training outputs of the Defence Forces are in line with best international practice��� it will further integrate the Defence Forces within the wider community���it will provide quality assurance and reward members for their participation in lifelong learning and on continuous development programmes.��� The Naval Service must be credited with developing the process in the first instance. As their collaboration with IT Cork and their partnership with the National Maritime College of Ireland blossomed, so did their determination to gain validation for the excellent learning that was being achieved by their personnel. The volume and complexity of the work undertaken by Army and Air Corps staffs was rendered less daunt- ing by the sage advice of Cdr Brian Fitzgerald, Office of the FOCNS. His article in An Cosant��ir (February 2011), ���Making the Grade���, articulates the process that the Naval Service has gone through. The main vehicles approved by HETAC for European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) credits towards the awards are the potential NCO course (120 credits towards the certificate in Leadership Management and Defence Studies); all-arms standard course (150 credits towards the diploma in LMDS); and the senior NCO and logistics accountancy courses (180 credits each towards the BA degree in LMDS). While these courses carry the bulk of the ECTS credits, some 60 other DF courses also contribute credits as modules on the academic programmes. These include skills courses and associated specialist modules such as the various corps standard NCO courses. In the five years of hard work that have gone into developing this proj-

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