As a PTC it is of utmost importance to meet NATO operational requirements while conducting courses, and since 2009 SWEDINT has a well established cooperation with NATO School in Oberammergau, Germany within a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). In this cooperation the new Comprehensive Operations Planning Course (COPC) was developed, to meet NATO operational requirements.
Furthermore, SWEDINT has an established cooperation with the Supreme Allied Command Transformation (SACT), Norfolk, Virginia, USA, by hosting the Lessons Learned Staff Officer Course (LL SOC) with several iterations annually.
NATO accreditation
With NATO growing by the number of Nations and with a closer and more open cooperation with its partners it is of most importance to establish common standards reference individual education and training prior deployment in a mission. As a result, the Allied Command Transformation (ACT), Norfolk, Virginia, USA, and the Allied Command Operations (ACO), Mons, Belgium, developed the Bi-SC 75-7 Education and Individual Training Directive (May 2009 with Amendment July 2010) to meet these requirements.
One part of this is that courses provided for NATO fulfil common standards to ensure a similar education and training, regardless were this will be conducted.
In line with this, NATO has defined three categorization levels of courses:
- NATO Approved: Primary the course must meet the operational requirements of NATO. Furthermore, the course will be under the full control of the ACT Joint Force Trainer (JFT) and must be developed according to the Systems Approach to Training (SAT) Model.
- NATO Selected: Primary this course also must meet the operational requirements of NATO. However, the course will remain under national/developers control and there is no requirement to have the course develop according to the SAT Model, it could be an equivalent military or civilian model.
- Listed: This level do not include “NATO” in the categorization and there is no need to meet an operational requirement by NATO, neither is it required that the course is developed according to the SAT Model or other equivalent model
SWEDINT has now two courses accredited as NATO Selected
The Comprehensive Operations Planning Course (COPC, 15 November 2010) and the Gender Field Advisor Course (GFA, June 2011). This will ensure that the courses will meet both a NATO operational requirement and also the quality required to be developed and conducted according to the Bi-SC 75-7 and the SAT Model.
SWEDINT will develop further courses according to this process, aiming to provide an education and training platform meeting modern and required courses and environment.
Education and Training Opportunities Catalogue (ETOC)
The ETOC is the new NATO catalogue over available courses, and will cover several more courses than the previous NATO Course Catalogue. ETOC will not only have NATO or partner Education and Training Facility (ETF) courses, theoretically any civilian ETFs could include courses that could be of interest.
ETFs have the responsibility/ownership of the information, pertaining to each course. ACT will only except courses for the inclusion in the ETOC and provides a course code.
The ETOC will be an advanced tool to provide a “one-stop-shop” tool for students and education managers with courses organized in “landscapes”, within and beyond NATO. Furthermore it will establish links between military and civilian ETFs, educators and students.