School is out for last time
WGCDR Neville Gregory, CO of the RAAF School of Management and Training Technology, reflects on the end of an era.

Early airmen leadership training exercises.

AN ERA of Air Force technological training will end on December 31 when the RAAF School of Management and Training Technology (RAAFSMTT) closes.

The decision is a result of the Air Force Training System Review. However, RAAFMTT’s functions will not cease.

Training Programs and Development Flight and Training Support Flight will remain at RAAF Base Wagga and become subsumed by Headquarters Ground Training Wing.

Training Quality Flight will form the basis of Training System Teams, based on the Force Element Groups.

RAAFSMTT was founded in June 1985 from the Management and Instructional Methods Squadron and its predecessor, the Instructional Methods Flight, located within the RAAF School of Technical Training.

It conducted hundreds of instructional, training, promotion, and personnel management courses. Many of these gained nationally recognised qualifications.

During its illustrious service, RAAFSMTT hosted students from the Asia-Pacific region under the Defence Cooperation Program, mainly on the Instructional Techniques, Training Development and Training Management courses.

The promotion courses were also involved in foreign training, however these were usually restricted to exchanges between instructors. The school also sent mobile training teams to Malaysia and Indonesia to develop and deliver training.

Originally the school comprised two Flights: Technical Training Flight and Management Training Flight.

By 2000, the school mission focused on enhancing capability through training personnel to support the RAAF Training System and assisting commanders to improve the quality of Air Force Training. A significant change was that senior enlisted personnel ran most of the courses instead of the former education branch officers.

In the early 1990s, RAAFSMTT developed a new scheme of promotion courses for airmen under an integrated Airmen Education and Training Scheme. The scheme started in January 1992 and a new Flight, the Airmen Command and Studies Flight, was established.

More changes were to follow. After overseas studies of comparable training within the US Air Force, a proposal was put forward to CAF for the establishment of an airmen-led school and on February 1, 1996, the Airmen Leadership Flight (ALF) was established.

Almost immediately, a proposal was raised to have ALF become a member of RAAF College, thus centralising Air Force’s professional military education and training.

In July 1998, ALF became one of the four elements of the newly-expanded RAAF College and was formally handed over at a ceremony attended by Commander Training - Air Force on July 3, 1998. The RAAFSMTT staff establishment went from 59 personnel to 20 and concerns about its future were raised.

In 1998, the Air Force Management Service Centre Activity Review recommended that RAAFSMTT become responsible for the management services teams to make the school a “centre of excellence for management and training”. The teams were intended to develop and maintain quality management policy in the Air Force.

This occurred on January 1, 1999. However, alternative proposals were raised and in September that year the teams were re-established as an Air Force Headquarters Agency and Management Services ceased to exist as a school function.

In 1999, RAAFSMTT established Training Quality Officers (TQOs) on the major operational Bases following CAFAC endorsement of two recommendations that the Commander of Air Force Training provide specialist-training services and retain overall training management authority.

The TQOs were specialists intended to confirm that quality training was delivered across Air Force. By this year, the positions were fully staffed with representatives at RAAF Bases Amberley, Townsville, Williamtown, Richmond, Tindal and Edinburgh.

The TQO’s emphasis was on improving capability through training solutions. These personnel provided a strong capability for Air Force and quickly became sought-after individuals across their respective bases.

Arguably, the success of the TQO network was a major contributor to the closing of RAAFSMTT. The Training System Review by Air Force Headquarters recommended that the TQO concept should be expanded at the expense of Education Officers embedded within training units.

With RAAFSMTT losing the TQOs and some of the Education Officers, the unit’s numbers were no longer viable.

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