Does this apply to the UK?
Probably not by law but UK FTOs need to be competitive with mainland ones…
And non-FTO stuff (e.g. the PPL) has no specific bum-on-seat requirement anyway.
Personally I hate classroom learning, it always runs at about 10% of the speed I would like. I did all my theory for PPL/CPL/PPL-H/IR by reading books. Other people are entitled to their own opinions, but I’ve always hated the idea of being forced to do classroom learning.
That must be new because for many years e.g. CATS required sum bum-on-seat time. EASA allowed a formula whereby x days of self study were equivalent to y days of bum-on-seat, and obviously the FTOs doing distance programmes wanted to optimise that formula. But the CBIR needed something like 5 days residential. Same for the CPL.
Peter wrote:
That must be new because for many years e.g. CATS required sum bum-on-seat time. EASA allowed a formula whereby x days of self study were equivalent to y days of bum-on-seat, and obviously the FTOs doing distance programmes wanted to optimise that formula. But the CBIR needed something like 5 days residential. Same for the CPL.
Peter, that has changed, it is just that classroom time is done via videoconferencing. Much more convenient.
OK; I get it. They had a choice with covid:
but will they now revert to bum-on-seat?
Peter wrote:
but will they now revert to bum-on-seat?
@Peter, I don’t think they REALLY wanted the actual classroom, likely it was a CAA ask.
And now as it is allowed permanently, ATOs can charge you the same as before and do it over video, so don’t have to pay for the facilities – better margins.
Airborne_Again wrote:
but from a pedagogical point of view classroom teaching really is better
It depends. Kids and teenagers – yes. University students – perhaps, but the social thing is just as important. Without real classes, the social scene also evaporates as the pandemic has shown. Besides, most university students aren’t mature enough anyway to study on their own. So yes, classroom teaching can be said to be better from a “pedagogical” point of view, meaning better for most people who are at the age and place in life where the main thing they do is learn. But, I’m sure it has mostly do do with life getting unbearably boring and lonely without classrooms, as the pandemic also did show.
What we are talking about here is a token tiny bit of the course that has to be classroom because? Such silliness should be removed ages ago.
Peter wrote:
As a university, you have to do that anyway, otherwise you get a rebellion (actually probably the French Revolution) once the customers realise they are paying €xxxxx a year for a “video course”
Of course, university tuition in Sweden is free, so this hypothesis doesn’t hold water. And in any case when we did this remotely during the pandemic it was not a “video course” as we (professors) gave live lectures and still kept in personal contact with students.