Learning – why me?

‘I left school to get away from books, classrooms and desks. Away from people who wanted to teach me things I didn’t want to know. I don’t want a nine-to-five job. I want to be out with my mates. Learning and qualifications are a waste of time.’ Anyone who has spent any length of time with young Service people will have heard these views forcefully expressed.

But few people stay in the Forces for a full career. Huge numbers leave at the first break point in their contract, and many others go long before retirement age. Even those who last until they retire will usually have another career ahead of them. And the pendulum is now swinging towards a later end to the working life as the effects of a longer life span, better health, stock market collapse, Treasury raids and a smaller working population bite into pension provision.

So Service leavers, at all ages, need to be able to compete with civilians for jobs, and they need learning and qualifications to compete with other job seekers’ years of experience. They must show that their Service training and experience is of value to a civilian employer. They should also show that they are ready to be an adaptable, teachable, flexible employee, ready to learn and practise new skills – and the way to do this is to demonstrate qualifications and a portfolio of personal development.

Additionally, people who do stay in the Forces for a full career are finding that they constantly need to learn new skills if they are to be up to their job – and certainly if they want to get ahead of some very stiff competition. While personal development may not appear formally on the annual appraisal, it is certainly noticed – and the individual who is engaged in learning may well be a better bet than those who do not.

Of course, learning and qualifications are not the be-all-and-end-all. There are plenty of qualifications-festooned individuals wandering around who can hardly string two thoughts together and whom no one in their right mind would follow on an operation. But the combination of theoretical knowledge, common sense, practical and usable skills, experience and personal qualities is the employer’s dream. It is often the first of these attributes that gets its possessor to the interview, where the others can land the job.

All of us now have to learn or fail. This failure may not be dramatic or obvious – it may be no more than not achieving what might be possible, but it can still leave a sour taste and the feeling of a lack of personal fulfilment, quite apart from a less admiring family and smaller bank balance.

The trend towards learning is developing in the rest of society as fast as it is in the Forces. The majority of university students are ‘mature’ – they did not start their course directly from school. People with trade skills develop them further and learn specialisations in college; those with apprenticeships convert them into foundation degrees or HNDs; and specialists widen skill sets to enable them to move into broader roles.

So, even if learning for its own sake does not interest you, an awful lot of people are going to be ahead of you in the queue of life if you do not take it up. There ought to be something that turns you on out of the millions of courses now available. And, even with the current level of Armed Forces commitment, most people can make the time for study if they really want to.

Find something that you enjoy, and learn about it. Start small and build your skills. Look at subjects outside the ones that you already know something about, or develop career expertise further. Sign up for a taster course and try out different learning methods. Use all the Service facilities on offer. If you are short of ideas, talk with your commander, line manager, education officer or personal learning adviser.

In the drive to encourage learning in the Armed Forces, the MoD has now become a government-recognised awarding body, as we report in this month’s Quest. If you put this alongside the learning credit schemes and the general availability of encouragement, advice and information, all that the individual needs to find to increase their personal development is determination, time and a small share of the costs.

We also cover careers in the rail industry and telecommunications – technical sectors, no doubt, but with a wider spectrum of employment than you might think. A broad look at the utilities sector discloses more than 500,000 jobs, which should make it of interest to many Service leavers. Contrary to popular prejudice there is nothing improper about sales, marketing and retailing; indeed, a good sales person can win respect from customers and suppliers as well as a very good living, as we clearly show. The ever-popular worlds of franchising, and management and supervision complete the line-up. We hope they inspire some interest.