FORT RILEY, Kan. - To help Department of Defense civilians continuously improve their skills, the Army uses the Civilian Education System, which is based on various course levels.
Each course level has different priorities of students as well, because the classes are mandatory for some workers and optional for others.
"When you compare enrollment and completions of all of these Army installations, Fort Riley is at the top," said Kathy Bassett, chief of the Workforce Development Division of the Directorate of Human Resources. Fort Riley has had 185 people take part in the system and is followed by Fort Hood with 81.
The foundation course is the lowest level of the CES distributed learning classes and is required for all interns, team leaders, supervisors and managers who were hired after Sept. 30, 2006. However, it is available for all Army employees.
Completion of the other distributed learning courses, such as basic, intermediate, advanced and the continuing education for senior leader's course is required before taking the resident courses of the same name.
Some government employees, including those assigned as team leaders, supervisors or managers, must complete the CES resident requirements within a specified time frame.
One of the courses that must be completed is the basic resident course. This class must be completed within one year and prerequisites are the foundation course for employees hired after Sept. 30, 2006, and the basic distributed learning course.
Because the class is mandatory for team leaders, supervisors and managers, they are given first priority on the attendance list. Second priority is given to Army civilians who are not supervisors, as well as Army and DoD civilians who are in an Army-endorsed supervisory or management development program for the basic course, intermediate course and the advanced course.
For all classes, third priority is given to active duty Soldiers who supervise Army civilians and DoD leaders and term and temporary civilians who are responsible for supervising civilians and have taken the necessary prerequisite classes.
The intermediate resident course must be completed by supervisors and managers within two years. Workers who need to complete this course also must have successfully completed the distributed learning foundation, basic and intermediate level courses.
Civilians who are GS-13 to GS-15 pay grade also must complete the advanced course within two years. Prior to taking the advanced course, all the previous classes, as well as the corresponding distributed learning class, must have been completed.
The continuing education for senior leaders' class is available to Army civilians who have attained the grade of GS-14 or GS-15, as well as Soldiers holding the rank of lieutenant colonel, colonel, chief warrant officer 4 or 5, sergeant major or command sergeant major.
To help iron out any problems with the system, a team of directors from various organizations responsible for CES visited Fort Riley May 28 to not only brief the community but also to get feedback on how to improve the program.
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