A bit of advice for all students.
I hope this doesn't count as a thread drift, but the intention is to give some students, a pointer to help them assess early on in their training, as to the quality of their training, and potentially avoid these problems snowballing.
There are probably dozens of indicators, but can I suggest that this is one of the more important ones.
AM I BEING ASSESSED?
Is your instructor really "assessing you", and managing your training? If you come back from a 3 hour nav, and made a mess of the forced landing.
If the instructor explains that you failed the exercise, and need to repeat it.
Wrong way. Instructor gives you the 3 hour nav route again, this time, you do a great forced landing and he/she signs you off.
Correct Way. Instructor identifies forced landing as a weakness, briefs appropriately, and you spend your money on three hours of forced landing practice.
The point being.
Analyse the training being given to you. Is your instructor preparing you for the flight, and drilling down to the problems. Is he/she identifying whether its a preparation challenge, a technical challenge, or an airmanship challenge. If you don't feel these processes are happening in your training, speak to your instructor, then CFI/HOO.
Absolutely, the onus should be on the school, but students need to actively equip themselves with the skills to determine if they are receiving quality training, early on, and act on it.
You cant undo, substandard training.