Me as a teacher myself are always teaching something I don't know, and I am sure a good teacher/educator can be able to pick up anything to train others to a certain standard if you can pay good money.
I'm also a teacher. Some of the comments here are befuddling.
First of all, teaching school, let alone tertiary, students is a
big difference to training up ATCs. In case it hasn't quite been made clear, the latter type of people are literally in control of hundreds of lives. You don't get a lot of second chances as an ATC, and anything which is a near miss is likely going to bring that controller within an inch of their life.
Second - and this is getting a bit off topic now - teachers teaching something that is not quite their training but may be in their previous wheelhouses (or something like a former engineer teaching physics even if they have no science teaching training or experience previously) is something, though not necessarily ideal. Teachers teaching something completely out of their wheelhouse (like the same engineer teaching music or a non-English language that they have no idea about) is definitely not ideal. Why do we accept it (and graduate teachers are trained to accept it)? Because the current institutional structures will force teachers to teach in that way, either because they simply won't get jobs any other way, or otherwise a lot of gaps will not be filled and students - who teachers care about - will pay the price. The fact that this is a reality of the institution doesn't
prima facie make it acceptable and it certainly doesn't mean it transfers effectively to any formation arena.
You mean drop the standard at the risk of safety, would you be happy in a plane under the watch of an ATC that didn’t quite make the grade?
Wouldn't be the first time that institutions or bodies have lowered the bar even at the risk of safety. "But... no more people have died than previously, in fact the opposite has happened..."
Are you content knowing that a surgeon or hospital doctor who is treating you may have achieved a mere 51% average for their degree?
Good to know some people in the right places still have a backbone in the genuine name of safety!
I think sometimes people failed exams because of bad luck. Even universities are giving them second chances these days.
No, they get second chances because the university can continue to extract the most value out of them... money in fees, that is.
They're not even "second chances" as such. Some of them are academic misconduct cases that are quite blatant and has evidence to support it. But often they don't rise to the Senate level and are ignored quietly in-house. Not even a blemish on the academic record. So there is no "second chance" - it just gets quietly ignored, and the university keeps milking them.
The only thing is that if you do fail university, often you can give it another shot (though not necessarily straight away), so long as you are not dishonest. I'm not sure about ATC - seems to be an undercurrent of if you fail to meet the mark, you'll never be able to be an ATC ever.
How is their AELP English level going to stack up to Level 6 which is the highest.
To be honest, a lot of foreigners have very good professional English, often better than most Australians, even those that might consider going for ATC. It's just not fast and fluent or very natural in everyday conversation, plus it is also accented.
It also doesn't mean that a few cases like that means we can automatically open the floodgates.
The original question is interesting - should Airservices reduce airport capacity until the ATC roster is properly covered with minimal overtime?.
There may not be a choice - that hand will be forced if it comes down to it.
It would be suicidal (figuratively and maybe literally) for anyone to think that if the capacity is being breached that it would be sane to continue that way.
Funny, when I was considering life and career choices some time ago, my father asked if perhaps I might consider becoming an ATC. I didn't even think of the amount of time it would require to go from nothing to qualified, let alone how difficult it would be,
and that's just the training, not actually doing the real thing. Sure, the money would be great (as usual, probably not enough for the **** that one has to put up with), but oh geez the pressure to get it right every single second of every single day would be immense.
I have previously engaged with staff from Air Services Australia as far back as 2008 and they were earning $200k + back then. I'm pretty sure a "Partner" if genuine could survive long enough for the ATC in training to progress to a more mainstream location. YMMV
