Assessing the Effectiveness of Education and Training

The key to strengthened national defense and military modernization is to foster and raise a large batch of high quality, new-model, talented mili­tary personnel, while vigorously increasing the ability to make innova­tions in science and technology. We must grasp these two requirements as the primary responsibility of the military academies, properly grasp­ing the developing trends of modern technology and the developing pat­terns of military education, diligently pressing for military academies to successfully become the cradles for development of high quality, talented military personnel—the foundations of new high technology and military theory innovation.43

While the PLAAF aspires to set up educational infrastructures that “become the cradles for development of high-quality, talented military person­nel,” it remains to be seen whether the programs that are now being put into place will deliver the desired results. Accurately assessing the competency of PLAAF personnel has been and remains a difficult endeavor. The PLAAF has not been operationally tested since the Korean War, and it has been absent from

Chinese military interventions since the 1950s. The air force was never com­mitted into battle during ground force skirmishes on Vietnam’s border in the late 1970s. Since then, PLA operations have been limited to humanitarian relief efforts in response to flooding or earthquakes. In these instances, the PLAAF’s limited airlift capacity has left it sidelined during the army-led operations. Nor has the PLAAF participated widely in United Nations peacekeeping missions, although the PLA is expanding its support of logistics and medical teams in Africa and Asia. And, the PLAAF has not established the type of bilateral train­ing exercises with other regional air forces that would provide insights into the level and sophistication of its tactical forces. Although the PLAAF Command College has cracked opened its doors to foreign military students, these officers are segregated into a separate international seminar which limits their interac­tion with and exposure to Chinese field grade officers. Thus it is necessary to look for other proxies that can yield insights into the progress, professionalism, and operational capacity of the officers and airmen of the PLAAF.

Despite recent progress and increased accessions of graduates of civil­ian universities, the PLAAF may be a long way from reaching its education goals. The PLAAF has announced that improved officer education is a top pri­ority and an enduring long-term goal. In fact, the PLAAF has set as a near­term goal to ensure all new officers attain a 4-year undergraduate degree prior to accession. In the mid-to-long term, the PLAAF hopes to build an officer corps in which 100 percent have undergraduate degrees and over 30 percent have advanced degrees. Additionally, the PLAAF intends to see that over 95 percent of commanding officers at the division, brigade, and regimental lev­els are equipped with basic degrees, with 80 percent or more having advanced degrees.44 Yet, as late as 2009, fewer than 40 percent of officers leading the air force’s front line units possessed an undergradu­

ate degree and less than 1 percent of those commanders held a postgradu­ate degree.45 This lack of credentials among PLAAF commanding officers may be explained by PLAAF restrictions placed on their course attendance. Senior command track officers—at the colonel and senior colonel level—are only authorized to attend a 1-year, nondegree PME program, while support and technical officers are afforded opportunities to pursue graduate degrees in multiyear programs at either PLAAF or civilian colleges.

Another measure of the professional development of the PLAAF is the vol­ume and quality of military professional publications that are being developed by its officer corps. The PLA’s airmen have published extensively during the past 10 years, oftentimes in the performance of directed research on key topics—strat – egy, doctrine, tactics, air force building, education and training, logistics, etc.— assigned by the PLAAF Headquarters. Officially developed publications are generally produced by a research team under the guidance of a senior officer and vetted through a formal review prior to publication. Top-level writings are endorsed by the PLAAF Commander or the Political Commissar, or both. In recent years, the PLAAF has written extensively on military education and train­ing, and a listing of relevant recent publications can be found in the appendix.

Although the volume of PLAAF military writings is an important indi­cation of the transformation that is taking place in PLAAF education and training, significant variations and gaps remain in both the substance and the operational concepts articulated by various authors and institutions. For exam­ple, Science of Air Force Training (ё¥¥ВДШ^), published in 2006 under the guidance of Lieutenant General He Weirong, was the air force’s contribution to a PLA series that includes separate volumes on army, navy, and joint train – ing.46 The book provides a comprehensive overview of the PLAAF training structure, laying out the hierarchy of training organizations, classifications of training, specific training responsibilities at various levels of command, and categorization of training methods. But, one must ask: what is the purpose and motivation behind this publication? And, who is the target audience? The publication lacks the authority of a service regulation or manual, and it does not include sufficient detail to either develop or execute training programs. In effect, the Science of Military Training series serves only as a primer on PLAAF service training programs and infrastructure, and therefore may be an indica­tion that the PLAAF (and the PLA) are still at a very early stage of revamping military training programs.

Yet another indicator of professional development within the PLA—and by extension within the PLAAF—is the well-defined process for compilation, review, and validation of training standards. The PLA has demonstrated a con­sistent pattern of managing operational training as it has twice revised and pro­mulgated new Outlines for Military Training and Evaluation (OMTE) within the past 10 years. The most recent effort was undertaken beginning in 2006 to correct recognized training deficiencies in the 2002 version of the OMTE. From initial review in December 2006 through promulgation in July 2008 and implementation in 2009, the OMTE development and review process took slightly over 2 years to complete. As the event sequence and timelines in table 10-1 demonstrate, the procedures and deadlines for the development of the 2009 OMTE followed a pattern of development similar to the previous OMTE revision cycle that ran from January 2000 and October 2001.

Field units played a substantially greater role in the initial development of the 2008 OMTE. Standards development and field testing were carried out during the 2007 and 2008 annual training cycles with 163 division – and bri­gade-level units participating in the trial training and validation of the 2008

OMTE.47 The 2-year process of revision, experimental training, and valida­tion was a PLA-wide effort that included participants from each of the seven military regions, the PLA Navy, the PLA Air Force, Second Artillery, People’s Armed Police, and 21 departments within the four General Headquarters.48

The new OMTE was designed to address the training shortfalls that have repeatedly been cited in Kongjun Bao and other PLA newspapers, including expanded training for noncombat military operations; increased proportion of informatized knowledge skills and simulated training with high-technology weapons and equipment, including aircraft; standardized methods, procedures, and criteria for network-centric and “opposing force” training; clarified condi­tions, styles, methods, and requirements for training in complex electromagnetic environments, training at night, and training under adverse weather conditions; established capabilities-based training standards and assessment system; raised standards for basic training; expanded scope of training appraisals; revised eval­uation program; and defined training management scheme, specified duties, and functions of training.

July 1, 2009.

— "PRC Officers Discuss Training Outline Reform," Jefangjun Bao (Internet Version) in Chinese August 15, 2000, 6.