particularly the case for technical skill positions that require long periods of training. For example, the Navy identified 89 Naval enlisted positions that have been difficult to fill principally because of the required training time--the course length ranged from 16 days for an explosive ordnance demolition diver to 320 days for a hospital corpsman. Similarly, we identified 67 Army military occupational specialty (MOS) courses provided to reserve and active members that take more than 4 months to complete. The Reserves rely in part on recruiting persons with prior military experience--active and reserve. These persons are already trained; however, in some cases their former military occupational skills are not needed in the units they join. Consequently, they must be retrained. In fiscal year 1987, about one half of the Army National Guard's and Marine Corps' enlistments had prior military service. According to the services, about half of these personnel would require retraining. Geographic constraints also have an impact on individual skill levels. For example, by Department of Defense directive, a unit may only draw from the pool of individuals within a 100-mile radius of its location. Thus, persons with the needed skills are not always available. Similarly, reservists who relocate may not be able to find units in need of their military specialties. Because of equipment modernization and mission assignment tank is replaced by the M-1 tank, a tank crewman must be TRAINING INITIATIVES The services are aware of problems with military skills in the Reserves and are developing programs such as the following to address these problems: - The Navy and Air Force have developed modularized training, which divides courses into segments that can be taught during a reservist's 2-week active duty training period and a certain number of weekend drills. The Navy has developed 7 modular courses since 1985 and plans to complete 13 more courses by the end of fiscal year 1990. The Air Force has developed training modules and packages for 170 occupations to supplement on-the-job training, according to an Air Force training official. The Navy is also developing "Readiness Centers" that will be equipped with more training equipment and simulators than are found in its local reserve centers. These new centers will have full-time instructors and be able to support the training needs of the units in their geographic areas. A total of 40 centers are planned; however, to date the Department of the Navy has approved the development of only one center. In 1986, the Marine Corps began developing a new on-the-job training initiative for prior-service Marines who need retraining. The program combines supervised on-the-job training, correspondence courses, and two 2-week training sessions. This program could take a reservist up to 2 years to complete. Manuals for implementing the program have been developed for 15 of 35 occupational fields. - The Coast Guard has almost completed initial implementation of its "STARFIX" program, which is designed to determine what types of training should be added to individual training plans so that they match mobilization requirements. The Army also has a number of initiatives under way, which I will discuss later. SKILL QUALIFICATIONS OF SOLDIERS IN THE ARMY RESERVE AND THE NATIONAL GUARD I would now like to turn to the results of work we have in process on the skill qualifications of soldiers in the Army Reserve and the National Guard. As you requested, we have undertaken a detailed analysis of Army qualification data and an evaluation of the Army's proposals to improve soldiers' qualifications to perform their jobs. Our work shows that - reservists may be less skilled than the Army's data - the Army does not know how many reservists are proficient in their jobs. We found that, though soldiers are termed "MOS-qualified," they are not necessarily fully qualified in their jobs. Rather, "MOS-qualified" soldiers may have been trained in only a portion of the tasks that the Army considers critical to proper job performance. Since a relatively small number of reservists take the Army's Skill Qualification Test (SQT), the Army lacks overall information on reservists' proficiency. MOS Qualification Standards Over the past 10 years, the Army has devoted considerable resources to identifying critical job tasks that soldiers must be able to perform to do their jobs proficiently and to survive in Combat-related tasks are described in a Common Task combat. Soldier Manual, which applies to all soldiers, regardless of their occupational specialties. Specific job tasks are described in a separate Soldier Manual for each of the Army's more than 350 job specialties. The responsibility for training soldiers is shared by the Training and Doctrine Command, which operates the Army's training schools and centers, and the individual units to which soldiers are assigned. Army schools provide training in the basics of the occupational specialties that soldiers perform when assigned to a unit. (AIT). This training is referred to as Advanced Individual Training The Army generally awards an MOS to a soldier upon successful completion of AIT. However, based on the Army's objective to minimize the cost and length of formal training programs, soldiers are not always trained in all critical job tasks during AIT. |