UKH

During 2015 and 2016 Mountain Training is carrying out a review of all of the climbing awards/qualifications, inside and outside, checking to see if there needs to be improvements to the awards or to the pathways between them, identifying any gaps which exist in the award structure and seeking to improve equity, access and anything else which needs addressing

Then during 2016 MT will develop proposals for changes which we hope will be suitably £future-proofed£, i.e. appropriate for a good number of years to come. We will put out those proposals for reaction and comment before anything is finalised.

Over the next couple of weeks (until end of November) we would like to invite feedback from prospective candidates, award holders, users, providers and employers on any aspect of the current awards or structure. This is not a blank paper exercise which aims to sweep away the old and invent a completely new system, but we would like to know:

£ Do you have any comments to make on any aspect of any of the awards, or on the whole system in general?
£ How fit for purpose are they?
£ Are there areas that need updating or even removing?
£ What needs to be changed or added or integrated?
£ Are there any gaps?
£ Basically, anything you feel should change in the UK£s climbing awards structure.

Rather than disagreeing with or picking holes in the contributions of others it would be helpful if you could focus on letting us have your thoughts on desirable changes - or retention of the status quo. So, please try to be as objective, analytical and forward-thinking as possible with your feedback.

Tony Halliwell, MTUK

In reply to CARWG:

I have a background in adult education and and am an aspirant guide.

no more awards and preferably less. Mountain professionals let alone the general public don't understand our alphabet soup.

if you want to know how far away from equity / equality mountain professions are compare and record ethnicity / gender / sexuality.

My strong suspicion is that we"re well behind the church of England. Anyone know a gay mic?
Anecdotally the experience of female colleagues has been patchy to put it politely.

In reply to CARWG:

I think it would be better for you to have a link to the MT website and some functionality built in there to enable us to comment as required.

In reply to CARWG:

For hillwalking and mountaineering they are probably pretty good but in my experience with pure climbing environments the older, higher level awards are seriously deficient.

I know this will bring howls of protest from some quarters but the mountain skills need to be divorced from climbing skills. An instructor/guide does not need to have a great awareness of mountain weather and navigation to teach leading at a roadside crag, but they would need the roped climbing skills not otherwise assessed until MIA. Sadly, under the current award structure, that requires that the applicant must:
"You should have at least a year’s worth of experience of hill walking.
You should have an interest in leading groups in the hills "
Neither of which is necessarily remotely applicable for everyone who wishes to teach lead climbing outdoors.

As it stands now the MIA is also guilty of the reverse problem in that is applicable to indoor climbing in spite of the focus of the training etc being the mountain environment. Most MIAs are nevertheless qualified by their experience indoors but I have occasionally seen MIAs working indoors who had a woefully inadequate understanding of the specific dangers of the indoor environment.

I guess see above. Climbing as an activity is increasingly NOT linked to mountaineering in the minds of participants. The awards should reflect and cater for that.

In reply to CARWG:

Thank you for the replies so far.

Any more contributions/suggestions please?