Sofema Aviation Services (www.sassofia.com) Considers the challenges of assessment of competency within the aviation environment.
Background to Competence
We need to consider competence as being the bringing together three elements, namely – Knowledge, Experience & Attitude.
The Challenge for quality auditors is how to assess the effectiveness of the overall system, however, as will all compliance based audit objectives we ask essentially the same questions
1/ What is the standard?
2/ Who is the owner of the standard?
3/ How is the standard documented & trained?
4/ How is the effectiveness of the standard measured?
5/ How are required changes effected?
What is Competence Based Training (CBT)
The CBT focus should be on the learning which is achieved and allowing the maximum flexibility to move through training based on the skills of your learner.
Learners are able to engage with one (task) competency at a time, essentially a small component of the overall learning goal.
When engaging with a CBT program, the specific knowledge, skills and attitudes which are required to deliver competence need to be identified and then organised into a series of ‘competency statements’
The competency statements then become the “standard” with which the training objectives will be measured against.
CBT focuses on a “task-based” training approach which encourages the integration of the different elements required to work together to provide the best outcome.
Mentoring processes work very well in support of competence building where we learn new ideas in the context of our own particular experiences,”
Refocusing the CBT from “Trainer” to “Trained”
Delivering an effective training pace is always a challenge where some students look for a slower pace, whilst others will be able to move at a faster pace.
Competency-based learning allows the focus of the learning experience to move to the recipient which means that the trainee can learn at their own pace and effectively
CBT Delivers Flexibility
The student is able to move on to additional competencies after they are able to demonstrate that they have mastered the current skill being learned.
With CBT it is also possible to skip one or more elements if it can be demonstrated that a satisfactory level of competence is currently held through assessment
CBT Audit Considerations
So consider the elements which will form part of our audit, essentially we are looking to ensure that the CBT “system” is evident, managed, controlled and that it is delivering in full accordance with the organisational objectives.
A good way to assess the viability is to use the substitution test in which we consider how the system (in this case CBT) would function if we were to replace certain roles (people leaving the organisation) – Asking the audit question Is the system sufficiently robust to sustain. Strong documented process and procedures would go a long way to answer this.
Sofema Aviation Services www.sassofia.com and SofemaOnline www.sofemaonline.com provide regulatory and vocational training as well as consulting for both regulatory authorities and industry.
Please email office@sassofia.com or online@sassofia.com
