How very disheartening. At the risk of going over old ground, this is entirely the result of the attitude of NATS management and those others who were toadying to them.
"The recruits are not going to be aerodrome controllers, so there is no reason to train them in aerodrome control". I was actually told this by someone who was busy working her way up the greasy pole. That was the last thing that she would have advocated not long before when she was still one of the troops. Why then, I wonder, did she think that NATS and its predecessors in title had trained new controllers in aerodrome control first for the last fifty years? (Not only NATS, but IAL and other employers also, to my own knowledge).
At the risk of participating in Sybyll Fawlty's specialist subject ("the bleedin' obvious"), a trainee who has had some aerodrome control experience will have an understanding of the problems and criteria of operating an aerodrome, first-hand experience and knowledge of aircraft types and performance, practical RTF use, emergency scenarios, a wider breadth of understanding all round - and a degree of CONFIDENCE on which to build. None of this is possible by completing a largely theoretical introductory course and then being thrown in at the deep end in either approach radar or area radar.
The NATS middle manager who is the first to declare that the Emperor has no clothes, the current system is wrong and that they need to revert to the original principle will have my respect. "Investor in People"? - I don't think so.