The re-drafting of the training syllabus has brought with it an encouragement for students to learn on their own, by designating significant portions as self-taught. That is, the student is expected to read the material on their own and bring any questions to sessions, not expect to have it spoon-fed to them by mentors. Most of you have risen to the challenge with enthusiasm.

Of course, there are still one or two who aren't reciprocating the effort that their mentors are putting in to training them. Believe it or not, students who put in the effort to learn their theory will find that they benefit during practical training as they know the principles that must be applied to a given situation. Moreover, students who put in the effort between sessions are the ones that go on to pass their exams more quickly and progress in their VATSIM career.

Conversely, students who don't reciprocate the effort put in by their mentors are wasting everybody's time. Therefore, we are going to employ a new system.

• If during a session, the mentor notices that the student would benefit from studying a couple of specific sections from a document, they should explicitly state in the mentoring report which sections should be looked at. This must be specific - it's not fair on the student if you ask them to read half of The Art of War.
• Between sessions, the student goes away and studies the relevant material in whatever way best suits them.
• At the beginning of the next session, the student will be required to demonstrate that they have studied the suggested material. This may be achieved through a variety of mediums. For example, the mentor might ask the student a handful of questions or the student might come to the session with questions for the mentor about what they have read (thus showing that they have made an effort to understand the material). Students are more than welcome to use notes or other study aids during this - VATSIM is an open-book environment.
• If the student is unable to demonstrate that they have studied the suggested material, then the mentor may terminate the session immediately, filling in the mentoring report as blank with a comment to the effect of what has happened. The same process will be repeated in the next session that is picked up.

Sounds a bit harsh, doesn't it? Yes, it could be seen that way, but frankly, mentors give up their time to mentor students. If the student can't be bothered to put in the effort to learn (one of the main reasons why mentors burn out - as stated in a recent forum thread), then everybody is wasting their time. It's also for the students benefit, if they want to progress quickly, then they need to be prepared to put effort into their training. Ultimately, the spirit of this policy is not to demand perfection from students, but to make sure that they're putting in the effort to take responsibility for their own training and not wasting their mentors time.

Of course, many of you are probably thinking, couldn't this be abused? For that reason, we are introducing an audit process to accompany the above:

• When a mentor terminates a session by enacting the above policy, they must inform the relevant TGIs through a helpdesk ticket, justifying why they have done so.
• Mentors who are seen to abuse the system may have their mentoring rights removed.
• TLDR: Be fair, use your judgement.

This policy does not cover the demonstration of practical skills - as this is what mentors are helping students with during sessions. The Training Place Policy will be updated with this in due course.