[ad_1]
Dave Patterson
With the exception of the U.S. Marine Corps, all U.S. services have failed to meet their fiscal year 2023 recruitment goals. But the Navy has a solution: eliminate the education certification requirement. The U.S. Navy will adjust its enlistment requirements for the second time in less than two years, a controversial move to increase recruitment. Let’s say a prospective recruit has not yet graduated from high school with a diploma or earned a General Educational Development (GED) certificate. The U.S. Navy will still allow the candidate to take the entrance exam.
Lowering recruitment standards widely criticized
Whenever the military lowers its recruitment acceptance standards, there are always warnings against cheating the U.S. Armed Forces. However, failing to meet recruitment standards is now a chronic problem that shows no sign of easing. Statistics from the U.S. Department of Defense show that by the end of fiscal year 2023, only the U.S. Marine Corps has achieved its recruitment goals, and only by a slim margin of 0.64%. Even the newly created U.S. Space Force has fallen short of its goals.
Still, attention remains focused on the U.S. Navy as it explores multiple avenues to boost its numbers.Correspondent Heather Mongilio, writing for the U.S. Naval Academy U.S. Naval Academy News,explain:
The U.S. Navy failed to meet all of its fiscal 2023 recruiting goals despite a year-long pilot program aimed at recruiting new sailors, leading to higher targets for next year, the Navy announced Tuesday. The Navy fell short of its enlisted sailor goal by 7,464, according to Marine Corps data released Tuesday. It aimed to recruit 37,700 sailors but ended fiscal 2023 with 30,236 sailors. “
One of the pilot programs that proved ineffective was lowering the acceptable test scores for entry into the U.S. Navy — a move that became policy in 2022. The idea is that the entrance exam or Armed Forces Qualifying Test (AFQT), an assessment of psychological and educational fitness that determines a recruit’s eligibility for enlistment in the service, may not be an accurate indicator of being able to perform satisfactorily in a specific job or occupation. The assessment of an individual’s best fit for a career is a series of tests called the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, or ASVAB. While the AFQT measures an applicant’s overall suitability for service in the military, it is only one component of the ASVAB, which also includes aptitude tests for specific job areas. In 2022, the Navy began placing more weight on these career points, so candidates who might not otherwise have the intelligence to join can join if they show promise in a specific U.S. Navy role.
“This change means that prospective sailors with ASVAB line scores high enough to qualify for Navy ratings will not be held back by lower AFQT scores, which may be hindered by the performance of their peers on the test. Performance varies,” said Navy Cmdr.Navy Recruiting Command spokesman David Benham told navy times in an email.
Previous measures proved ineffective
In the absence of any significant improvements in recruiting, the latest attempts to widen the door into the sailor ranks are based on the premise that a high school diploma or GED as evidence of attainment of a certain level of study may not be sufficient to remain aboard a U.S. Navy warship Work. “Every year we recruit thousands of people into our recruiting stations who want to join the Navy but don’t have the educational credentials. We just turn them away,” Navy Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Rick Cheeseman told The Associated Press.
According to Cheeseman, as many as 2,400 interested candidates were denied the opportunity to qualify to join the Navy, “as many as 500 of whom had scores sufficient to enter the Navy.” The rationale used by the Navy is that this is due to the impact of “COVID-19 trends in non-traditional education, dropping out of high school early to support families” or a variety of other reasons for not having a high school diploma.Quoted Navy official statement navy times. Whatever the rationale behind the new personnel policy, the thinking has a solid foundation. Lowering the acceptable admission score is lowering the standards. However, a secondary education diploma or GED is not required.
In many cases, a high school diploma is nothing more than recognition of time spent in the classroom. Whether anything was learned is unknown. Having a GED certificate indicates at least a passing score on a standardized test. Additionally, in many cases, competition for these potential recruits in the business market does not require a high school diploma. Many young people are no longer interested in institutional studies in public schools but excel in computer skills or other career pursuits that are valuable to all military services. So what the Navy is doing may work.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and do not represent any other position.
- About the Author: LibertyNation.Com National Security Correspondent. Dave is a retired U.S. Air Force pilot who flew more than 180 combat missions in Vietnam. He has served as the Principal Deputy Secretary of Defense, Comptroller General, and has held executive positions in the private sector aerospace and defense industries.in addition free countryDave’s articles have appeared in The Federalist Papers and DefenseOne.com.
- Source: This article was published by Liberty Nation
[ad_2]
Source link