Medium Transport; Low Wing; 2 Turbojet Eng
Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Air Traffic Control Time Certified In Pos 1 (yrs) 5.5
Workload; Training / Qualification; Situational Awareness; Communication Breakdown
ATC Issue All Types; Conflict Airborne Conflict; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Air Traffic Control Provided Assistance; Air Traffic Control Separated Traffic
Human Factors; Procedure
I was providing OJTI on YQG/DRE combined.  The trainee was certified DRE and was due for a check ride the following day at YQG.  I've never had to sit with this particular trainee before.  We were in and out of the hold for both CLE and DTW.  It was evident that we would be holding at least 10-12 aircraft for DTW and a handful for CLE.  There were very few over flights or departures scheduled; I opted to leave the sectors combined for volume while training. During the entire session the trainee consistently placed aircraft into head-on situations while putting them at the same altitude.  The trainee refused to use positive control even as I instructed trainee to; and appeared to be at least three clearances behind at all times.  I had to intervene and take over control of the frequency numerous times; at least three of which were to fix an imminent traffic situation.  The trainee's lack of a plan and poor execution of led to a unorganized and more often than not unsafe sector environment.  There were no airspace violations or losses I'm aware of; due to the work of myself and the D-side. I would normally just call this a bad training session; debrief and move on.  I imagine if the trainee was not already certified at the sector I would have intervened much sooner and not let the spacing coming out of the hold become such an issue.  None of the above listed problems occurred at the sector trainee was training at; all happened at the sector trainee already had.  I let the problem go further than I normally would to see if trainee had the ability to recover.  I shutter to think what would have happened if trainee were sitting there by herself.  Trainee created numerous situations that would have been either NMAC's or at the least TCAS events.
ZOB Controller instructing describes a situation where the developmental is working a combined sector. The developmental is certified on one of the combined sectors where all the problems occur. The developmental has aircraft head-on at the same altitude; then refuses to use positive control. The instructor fixes the problems so there were no losses of separation.