SATCO biggin
you hit the nail on the head when you talk about losing the Student licence-for the life of me I could not see the reasoning behind that, getting some live experience before the course was booked was a godsend, not just for the prospective ATCO, but also as you say gave the outfit about to splash out on training a good idea whether the money was to be well spent
My guess is that a lot of the people that got sent away to CATC or the like when I did (more years ago than I wish to recall!) would have seemed to be too much of a gamble to the beancounters had they not proved their ability beforehand
I had also heard that the 'space cadets ' would not be getting a ticket of any sort if they failed the course, as you say there are going to be far too few qualified APC/TWR rated people for the jobs available soon and no prospect of changing the situation in a hurry-would the courses at CATC be available even if people could afford to send trainees away?