A Generic Pedagogic Model for Academically Based Professional Officer Education

• Published date: 01 April 2019
• Author: Erik Hedlund
• Date: 01 April 2019
• DOI: 10.1177/0095327X17749488
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

A Generic Pedagogic

Model for Academically

Based Professional

Officer Education

Erik Hedlund

1

Abstract

After the end of the Cold War, many European countries cut back so heavily on

defense expenditure that they lost their capacity to defend themselves. This resulted

in greater need for improved cooperation and interoperability among member

states’ armed forces. One important attempt to improve the understanding and

interoperability among the European Union (EU) nation’s armed forces was taken in

2008 by the creation of the European Initiative for exchange of young officers aimed

to make the officer education in Europe more transparent and convergent with each

other. This article presents a proposal for a generic pedagogic model for an aca-

demically professional officer education that can improve understanding and inter-

operability among the EU nation’s armed forces. The model helps to facilitate a

process of professionalization of the military profession with an officer education

that can meet the requirements of higher education systems as well as the demands

of the military profession.

Keywords

officer education, generic model, practice-based knowledge, research-based

knowledge, adaptive learning, creative learning

1

Swedish National Defense University, Stockholm, Sweden

Corresponding Author:

Erik Hedlund, Swedish National Defense University, Box 278 05, Stockholm, SE-115 93, Sweden.

Email: erik.hedlund@fhs.se

Armed Forces & Society

2019, Vol. 45(2) 333-348

ªThe Author(s) 2018

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DOI: 10.1177/0095327X17749488

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The end of the cold war created a new security situation in Europe where European

countries saw no immediate threats to their own borders, which created a drive for

them to cut back heavily on defense expenditure and man power. These cutbacks led

to most individual European Union (EU) member states’ armed forces becoming so

small that they lost their capacity to defend themselves in the event of war. At the

same time, most EU member states also abolished their conscription systems and

went over to professional armed forces, with the intention that officers should return

to the civilian labor market after a career in the armed forces. These two fundamental

changes in the armed forces were well understood among EU member states, and the

way chosen to overcome them has been a process of increased cooperation and

improved interoperability among member states’ armed forces under the name of

Europeanization. Europeanization is based on the European Common Security and

Defence Policy (Libel, 2016) and refers to the integration and institutionalization of

rules and practice at the EU level and their influence on national policy-making

processes. The consequences of Europeanization for armed forces were not only a

greater need for better inter operability among EU member sta tes’ armed forces

(Merlingen, 2013) but also for much better understanding and increased interoper-

ability of military officer education systems. This striving for convergence and

understanding should also include the United State s because many international

operations come under the umbrella of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

and the United States. This situation has resulted in major reforms of officer edu-

cation systems in the EU (Libel, 2016: Paile, 2010), with the aim of becoming more

convergent with other nations’ officer educations system as well as educating offi-

cers for a return to a civilian career.

A Reformed Basic Officer Education System in Europe

The need for increased understanding and interoperability between the EU member

states’ officer education systems resulted in the 2008 “European Initiative for

exchange of young officers,” which was launched under the French EU presidency,

and the Initiative was given to the secretariat of the European Security and Defence

College (ESDC; Paile, 2010). The way for EU nations to find increased cooperation

and understanding of other nations’ officer education systems was to voluntarily join

the Initiative for exchange of young officers. This meant that they had to implement

and adapt to some of the cornerstones of the Erasmus programme and Bologna

process such as (1) easily understandable and comparable degree systems; (2) imple-

mentation of the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS),

which is the standard for comparing the achievement and performance of students

in higher education across the EU and other collaborating European countries;

(3) promoting mobility among students, teachers, and researchers; (4) promoting

quality assurance, and (5) promoting a European dimension in higher education

(Paile, 2010). Adaptation to the higher education system, and the Erasmus and

Bologna processes, became the i nnovative solution to not only the o bjective of

334 Armed Forces & Society 45(2)