Turbinejunkie,
You and i must work in a different aviation industry, i just about choked when i saw your response:
"Make the course at least Diploma standard but preferably as a Degree"
What the hell is that going to prove ?.
Is the government going to foot the bill, or perhaps QANTAS.
We have to pay for it ourselves, therefore, unless mummy and daddy pay for it, most will come from the a trade type background, i.e young people earning enough to pay for it.
Have you flown a C206 out of Port Keats or Maree, if you have, how can the lessons learn't there possibly be put into a lesson plan.
Flying Schools who pump out the numbers survive. Charter companies who do the charters survive, Pilots that get off their fat backside and move out of mummy and daddys house and go bush survive.
Double the number of commercial pilots to jobs, sounds like pretty good odds to me.
If you want Pilot conditions to improve, start lobbying your states Industrial Relations Commission, they set the standard.