TRANSFORMATION OF THE PROFESSIONAL MILITARY EDUCATION MODEL: CONCEPTUALISING THE UKRAINIAN COMBAT-PROVEN EDUCATION MODEL AS AN ADAPTIVE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM

Abstract

Summary. The study analyzes the prerequisites for the transformation of professional military education in the context of a highly dynamic contemporary operational environment and the accumulation of unique combat experience by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. A contradiction has been identified between the need to maintain the regulatory consistency, systemic coherence, and interoperability of professional military education and the requirement to rapidly update its content in response to changes in the character of warfare.

The conceptual foundations of the Ukrainian Combat-Proven Education Model (U-CPEM) as an adaptive educational system integrating normative-institutional, instructional-processual, and experiential-adaptive domains have been defined. The role of After Action Review (AAR) and the Lessons Learned (LL) process in transforming combat experience into structured educational content has been clarified. The traditionally dominant logic of professional military education and the adaptive logic of U-CPEM have been compared across sixteen criteria.

The principles of adaptability, cyclicality, integration, operational relevance, and decentralisation of professional knowledge have been identified. A structural and functional framework for the interaction of the model’s elements has been developed. It has been substantiated that standardisation and adaptability should not be regarded as mutually exclusive approaches but rather as complementary mechanisms for ensuring the quality and operational relevance of professional military education.

The limitations of the model associated with contextual dependence, fragmentation, the need for verification, and the potential rapid obsolescence of combat experience have been generalised. Directions for further empirical validation of U-CPEM have been proposed.