CHAPTER 1 – WHAT IS CANADIAN ARMY PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT?

 

CANADIAN ARMY MODERNIZATION STRATEGY LINE OF EFFORT 2.5

Advancing with Purpose: The Canadian Army Modernization Strategy, 4th Edition (2020) specifically focuses on PD with the stated goal being the creation and sustainment of a sense of professional curiosity and career-long learning. The Canadian Army Command and Staff College is the Centre of Excellence (COE) for PD and this guide serves as a reference in support of the Commander Canadian Army’s (CCA) modernization strategy. Ideally, the educational journey creates an integrated understanding of the profession’s body of knowledge and enhances cognitive capacities essential to the profession’s expertise across the full spectrum of defence, security and combat missions. Education is all about learning and achieving a level of understanding, demonstrated through the ability to explain causes, for the purpose of developing enhanced knowledge. Even when faced with the requirement to support CA force generation model in the current operational environment, non-formal PME is well worth the time and efforts invested. It is critical to balance the need for officers and NCMs in an operational force with the longer-term imperative to develop those who will lead and shape the future army. 

 

CAO 24-14 CANADIAN ARMY PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Professional Military Education Principles

PME must remain flexible and adaptable to meet the challenges of the future, and this is why so much effort needs to be put into the delivery of PME. This is where the command teams must incorporate their knowledge and experience in the design and delivery of an appropriate unit program. The principles of non-formal PME are:

1. Command Engagement. Commanders at all levels will be actively engaged in the delivery of non-formal PME and are responsible to ensure that self-development is supported within their respective commands. Direct command involvement, particularly in planning and allotting resources, leading activities, and incentivizing soldier participation is required.
2. Community of Practice (CoP). Commanders at all levels must create opportunities for critical thought and reflection, as well as the opportunity to engage others within larger groups for the purpose of sharing knowledge and/or pursuing common interests. The underlying goal should always be to advance the soldier’s knowledge in a given field.
3. Time. Commanders must invest time to ensure the adequate delivery and consumption of non-formal PME. Commanders must create this time in their annual schedules and also protect it against other competing priorities. 
4. Learning Culture. Promotion of a learning culture and the creation of a learning environment are critical to the success of non-formal PME. All soldiers must be encouraged to engage in continuous self-development. 
5. Relevance. Non-formal PME should be grounded in the profession of arms and seek to broaden a soldier’s perspective while reducing biases and blind spots, offering new knowledge that may be directly applied in their duties. 
6. Flexibility. There will periods, such as during deployments or similar high-readiness activities, where commanders simply cannot cease or suspend other education and training to run self-development activities. Self-development programs must therefore be flexible enough to ensure that they can integrate with other annual cycles and draw on potential learning opportunities presented within those activities, not at the expense of them. 
7. Inclusive. Commanders must not fear exposure to ideas and arguments that fall outside their traditional comfort zones. Non-formal PME programs must be relevant to the objectives and goals of the Army, and therefore must not lean too heavily on too few subjects. Mission success relies greatly on the diversity of thought and the unity of action. 
8. Incentive. Commanders must seek ways and opportunities to incentivize 
9. self-development. With time always at a premium, soldiers should feel their investment in non-formal PME is a worthy one. Incentivised non-formal PME should not be characterized negatively as ‘a good go’. Rather, soldiers are more likely to engage in non-formal PME if there is a sense of accomplishment and reward. Soldiers should be recognized by the chain of command through formal and informal means for engaging in continuous self-development. 
10. Communication. Part of the self-development journey is the improvement of a soldier’s ability to effectively communicate both orally and in written form to a broad range of diverse audiences. Soldiers should be strongly encouraged to present, write, and publish in both professional and scholarly forums.

 

TERMINOLOGY

Professional Development

CA PD is not merely a framework, but also the process through which soldiers engage in life-long learning of the profession of arms. It combines formal education, training, experience, and self-development into a collaborative effort. It requires leadership support across all pillars to enable soldiers to learn.

Formal Professional Military Education

Consists of programmed career courses and instruction.

Non-Formal Professional Military Education

Non-formal PME is progressively acquired education that consists of professional development, knowledge, and tools. It is a mandated command-driven activity and should be broadly applicable across the CA regardless of whether the focus is regular or reserve organizations, as well as flexible, scalable, and tailorable to meet the broad range of needs of commanders at every level. Perhaps most important, non-formal PME must be interesting, relevant, incentivized, and rewarding, with a view to encouraging inclusive and diverse culture change through continuous engagement by soldiers at all levels over the long term. Non-formal PME is typically derived from professional, environmental, and occupational socialization.

Education is Not Training

Command Teams must not confuse ‘education’ with ‘training’. Training is the often-repeated application of knowledge in order to development proficiency and expertise. It teaches the infantry to shoot, move, and communicate expertly, the engineers to breach, build, and bridge, and so on. Training builds muscle memory and is vitally important, but it is distinct from education and cannot replace it. Where education and training intersect is in the how of education, the methods by which officers and NCM pursue the acquisition of the necessary knowledge. They need to be trained in the basic tools of evaluating all types of information they will be exposed to in their PME/PD journey. Blind accumulation of facts, bereft of context (time, place, people-culture), is likely more harmful to the CA than not acquiring the facts in the first place.