QSK?
This was examine a couple of years ago at the RNZAC instructors conference at Ohakea. In a very good presentation on the last day, Brian Carruthers of ASL said that basically it's the pilots who need to change.
Our weather is NOT as bad as Europe (cloud), Australia (heat), or the USA (the works).
Our terrain is not generally as bad as any of those places either. The country is so big that most planes can fly to a coast from anywhere on one tank of gas. Most airports are below 1000' AMSL. The highest mountain we have wouldn't feature in Europe or the USA. We don't normally have extremes of heat in the popular flying places except the glider heaven in the Mackenzie country, or the Hawkes Bay/Wairarapa in summer westerlies.
But we do have pilots who take twelve attempts to pass PPL exams, up to seventeen I think was the record for a CPL exam, and the worst thing I reckon is people who ask for recounts on 65% to try and get 70%. You still don't know two thirds of the material! And the record low marks on most exams are so bad I'm not putting them in public view.
He said if we don't change the general quality of pilots ourselves, then the regulator (CAA, using ASL as the contractor) will start excluding people at the entry level. We could have three strikes you're out, never get another go. We could have an 80% pass mark. We could have oral exams for Law, or Air Tech, wouldn't that be just swell.
The biggest thing he said we need to change is our attitudes towards standards, because if we don't, they'll start doing it for us. Imagine if the trainers were able to focus on people who really wanted to put the effort in instead of "My dad sent me here to grow up" students. Imagine how nice it would be at every aeroclub and training school if instructors were required to be REGISTERED TEACHERS. It would certainly be very quiet. We have to change ourselves as a pilot body so it isn't taken out of our hands.