Specialist training services

Tender description

The Tri-Service University Short Course Programme (USCP) forms a part of a wider strategy of the Services to contribute to the elective education of its personnel. Elective education represents a high value means of enhancing skills and knowledge and developing enquiring minds and critical thinking. Service personnel should have the opportunities offered by elective education in order to maximise benefits realisation through developing the Services' collective intellectual capital. The Tri-Service University Short Course Programme (USCP) forms a part of a wider strategy of the Services to contribute to the elective education of its personnel. Elective education represents a high value means of enhancing skills and knowledge and developing enquiring minds and critical thinking. Service personnel should have the opportunities offered by elective education in order to maximise benefits realisation through developing the Services' collective intellectual capital. The USCP supports this by offering personnel the opportunity to study topics from a broad perspective on issues of current importance and interest to Defence and be exposed to new and diverse ideas alongside developing research, analysis, reasoning and critical thinking skills, all within an academic environment, and to encourage further study on an individual basis. The USCP is not training and is not intended to prepare individuals for roles or to develop specific competencies. The USCP is a portfolio of courses; each course runs for 2 to 5 working days duration. Universities should be prepared to offer courses that meet the categories of ‘Command, Leadership and Management’, ‘Regional and Strategic Studies’, ‘Science Technology and Mathematics’, ‘Human Resources and Organisational Development’ and ‘Languages’. It is expected that the courses are offered with Credit Accumulative Transfer Scheme Points (CATS) wherever possible to enable students to access relevant higher education courses although any assessment would be voluntary and at individual cost to the student. The courses should be relevant to current developments globally and the military environment, and reflect the university's breadth and depth of research in the topic of interest. Each course within the overall programme is likely to run once per year within the 4 year contract although more popular courses might be held more than once. Traditionally, minimum class size is around 12 students to a maximum of around 30 students. Currently, 41 courses run each year at various universities with food and overnight accommodation provided for the duration; it is intended for the new contract to extend the number of courses to commence from 1.9.2017.