03-03-2019, 01:39 PM
Fellow Amateurs,
Like most former WIA Assessors, I have been contacted by the AMC with the intention of having me come on board and invigilate their examinations. I respectfully declined the offer. Reproduced below are a set of reasons I have given to Martin Crees-Morris, and I strongly suspect many other past Assessors would share similar views.
Chris Bourke
VK4YE
Martin,
I have given serious consideration to your offer of registering as an invigilator of Amateur Radio assessments, but have now concluded that it is not possible under current conditions.
Let me explain ......
This is my 50th year as a licenced Amateur Radio operator and I have been accredited with the WIA exam service since 1997. The ACMA outsourced its examination service to the WIA in 2009, and in readiness for implementing this, I completed training as an Assessor in 2008. For in excess of twenty years I have run classes and assessments for well in excess of one hundred candidates, both new entrants to the hobby and for those seeking to upgrade their licences. While I have been uncomfortable with the high financial hurdle the ACMA imposed on the WIA in its delegation of examination functions back in 2009, I grudgingly accepted that the imposed Cost Recovery Charges (done for the purpose of allowing competitive tenders from other than the low cost base of the WIA), were kept in-house and ultimately benefited members of the Amateur Radio fraternity.
Far more enlightened countries such as New Zealand, the USA, Canada and the UK have government agencies that have devolved the assessments to the respective national representative for their Amateur Radio members - ARRL, RSGB, NZART etc etc. This has resulted in very much reduced assessment imposts - eg in New Zealand there is simply one exam composed of 60 questions drawn from a 600 question public domain data base - and the examination fee is a mere NZ$5.00! Our ACMA is still plodding along in legacy mode, requiring separate assessments for both theory and regulations (Standard and Advanced grades). Only the Foundation assessment has a combined theory/regulations format.
Amateur Radio operators ought not be seen as milch cows for the Federal Government nor for boosting the bottom line of external service providers who have no close association or empathy with the hobby. And the operative word here is "hobby". These assessments are not for the purpose of validating trade or vocational qualifications, but simply to verify a candidate possesses a minimum knowledge set and operational skills relevant to the hobby of Amateur Radio. In this context, the ACMA's tender option of three alternate methods of providing assessments was nothing more than a Hobson's Choice. All were defective in one or more aspects and in a relative sense only Option 1 was the least unpalatable. Clearly, by default, it had to be the one selected. Furthermore, the requirement that a winning tenderer must apply Cost Recovery Charges in providing the service ensured that non Amateur related providers could tender for a contract, and if successful, enjoy a nice income stream compared to what could otherwise be provided at very nominal cost by volunteer assessors, which is the system currently applied very successfully in the aforementioned countries.
From my reading of the AMC Examination Fee Schedule for 2019, and comparing it to the WIA proposed Cost Recovery schedule in their tender, I am genuinely horrified at the obscene impost the examinees will have to endure. For example, it will now be a fixed $90 per assessment, versus say (proposed by the WIA) $27 for a Foundation Assessment where the candidate is under 25 years of age. This underscores the disparity of the two organisations - one which by its charter is set up to " promote, advance and represent in any way it thinks fit Amateur Radio and the interests of Radio Amateurs ", while the other quite clearly has no other purpose than gouge funds from candidates without regard to any negative effect of the impost.
To me, the AMC's proposal that the pool of former WIA accredited Assessors will become mere invigilators and their voluntary donation of time and freely given labour serving to fatten the AMC bottom line is morally indefensible. I foresee a marked reduction in applicants prepared to mount the artificial financial hurdle to enter the hobby, or progress within it. Nothing positive for the hobby of Amateur Radio has come out of AMC winning the tender, and I certainly do not wish to be part of an inevitable retrograde outcome.
Regards,
Chris Bourke VK4YE
BA (Mathematics) Dip Ed.
Like most former WIA Assessors, I have been contacted by the AMC with the intention of having me come on board and invigilate their examinations. I respectfully declined the offer. Reproduced below are a set of reasons I have given to Martin Crees-Morris, and I strongly suspect many other past Assessors would share similar views.
Chris Bourke
VK4YE
Martin,
I have given serious consideration to your offer of registering as an invigilator of Amateur Radio assessments, but have now concluded that it is not possible under current conditions.
Let me explain ......
This is my 50th year as a licenced Amateur Radio operator and I have been accredited with the WIA exam service since 1997. The ACMA outsourced its examination service to the WIA in 2009, and in readiness for implementing this, I completed training as an Assessor in 2008. For in excess of twenty years I have run classes and assessments for well in excess of one hundred candidates, both new entrants to the hobby and for those seeking to upgrade their licences. While I have been uncomfortable with the high financial hurdle the ACMA imposed on the WIA in its delegation of examination functions back in 2009, I grudgingly accepted that the imposed Cost Recovery Charges (done for the purpose of allowing competitive tenders from other than the low cost base of the WIA), were kept in-house and ultimately benefited members of the Amateur Radio fraternity.
Far more enlightened countries such as New Zealand, the USA, Canada and the UK have government agencies that have devolved the assessments to the respective national representative for their Amateur Radio members - ARRL, RSGB, NZART etc etc. This has resulted in very much reduced assessment imposts - eg in New Zealand there is simply one exam composed of 60 questions drawn from a 600 question public domain data base - and the examination fee is a mere NZ$5.00! Our ACMA is still plodding along in legacy mode, requiring separate assessments for both theory and regulations (Standard and Advanced grades). Only the Foundation assessment has a combined theory/regulations format.
Amateur Radio operators ought not be seen as milch cows for the Federal Government nor for boosting the bottom line of external service providers who have no close association or empathy with the hobby. And the operative word here is "hobby". These assessments are not for the purpose of validating trade or vocational qualifications, but simply to verify a candidate possesses a minimum knowledge set and operational skills relevant to the hobby of Amateur Radio. In this context, the ACMA's tender option of three alternate methods of providing assessments was nothing more than a Hobson's Choice. All were defective in one or more aspects and in a relative sense only Option 1 was the least unpalatable. Clearly, by default, it had to be the one selected. Furthermore, the requirement that a winning tenderer must apply Cost Recovery Charges in providing the service ensured that non Amateur related providers could tender for a contract, and if successful, enjoy a nice income stream compared to what could otherwise be provided at very nominal cost by volunteer assessors, which is the system currently applied very successfully in the aforementioned countries.
From my reading of the AMC Examination Fee Schedule for 2019, and comparing it to the WIA proposed Cost Recovery schedule in their tender, I am genuinely horrified at the obscene impost the examinees will have to endure. For example, it will now be a fixed $90 per assessment, versus say (proposed by the WIA) $27 for a Foundation Assessment where the candidate is under 25 years of age. This underscores the disparity of the two organisations - one which by its charter is set up to " promote, advance and represent in any way it thinks fit Amateur Radio and the interests of Radio Amateurs ", while the other quite clearly has no other purpose than gouge funds from candidates without regard to any negative effect of the impost.
To me, the AMC's proposal that the pool of former WIA accredited Assessors will become mere invigilators and their voluntary donation of time and freely given labour serving to fatten the AMC bottom line is morally indefensible. I foresee a marked reduction in applicants prepared to mount the artificial financial hurdle to enter the hobby, or progress within it. Nothing positive for the hobby of Amateur Radio has come out of AMC winning the tender, and I certainly do not wish to be part of an inevitable retrograde outcome.
Regards,
Chris Bourke VK4YE
BA (Mathematics) Dip Ed.