profit from learning
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The importance of keeping up to date
by T. P. Cook Continuing our first-hand comments on transport education, this week we record the views of Mr T. P. Cook, who has won the CM prize in this year's RSA examinations.
Mr Cook is the area manager for Inter-City Transport and Trading Co Ltd in Edinburgh. He attained the highest marks by a road haulage student in the Royal Society of Arts Road Transport (Operation) (Goods) examination this year.
Beginning his career as a driver — he holds a CLI hgv licence — he has been a trade union shop steward but is now seeing the industry from the management viewpoint. His experience as a heavyweight boxer will probably stand him in good stead but he also plays soccer and baseball.
ROAD HAULAGE is a vigorous, competitive and still developing industry and it is becoming necessary, more and more, for people in it to undertake formal educational courses to improve their management potential.
My choice of course was dictated by my absence for some years from full-time education. In the circumstances the Royal Society of Arts diploma in Road Transport Studies seemed to offer the best solution to my problem.
Like so many other transport courses, the RSA syllabus does not confine itself to goods transport but involves the study of both passenger and goods carrying. To be successful and indeed to derive the maximum benefit from the course, the student must become involved in both activities.
Having been a driver, I thought that I had a good working knowledge of the industry but I was surprised to discover that my knowledge was largely superficial. My duties as an area manager for a large transport company have only confirmed my discovery that there is still a lot to learn.
So far as the course is concerned, after I had attended evening classes for one term, I decided that I would add second year passenger and goods operation to the seven subjects laid down in the syllabus. Though I was successful in all nine subjects I feel, looking back, that I might have been a little too ambitious. Without the support and efforts of the tutors at Telford College it would have been even more difficult than it proved to be.
It would be invidious for me to stress the effort which is required of the student. Evening classes and courses have been running since September and those participating will have already realised just what is involved. Some will have already fallen by the wayside deterred by the work which lies ahead. Those that stay to finish the course will enjoy the personal satisfaction that comes with an objective achieved. I hope to be among them again next year for I am still studying.
I cannot stress too strongly, however, the necessity for the student to keep abreast of new legislation and developments in operational and technical fields. The trade press is an ideal medium from which to obtain information of this kind and it is a good idea to adopt a personal filing system so that articles about the same subject are together for reference when required. This will also be found to be an invaluable aid to revision to supplement class notes.