The Standards & Quality
I'm not convinced that the new Instructors are so awful. What is true is that the average Instructor is considerably younger and is now on a 'self improver' fast track to the airline job with very few older and mature individuals coming into the system. It is the lack of maturity that we have lost and also the continuity of instructing staff.
Economics set the wage pay not flying school owners or commitees. The UK interpretation of JAR has been the main cause of our problems both for our Instructors and the flying schools alike. This problem will not be remedid until we have a dedecated Instructor Qualififcation with it's own exams and testing regime. Instructing should be taken out of the Public Transport (Carriage of Passengers) law.
The FI(r) system is in itself a nonsense and dosn't recognise a difference between a rookie and an experienced and mature instructor nor even that the FI(r) has even taught the complete syllabus before becoming unrestricted and being able to work unsupervised - ugh, sorry as a restricted FI they don't even need to be supervised! The FI(r) becomes unrestricted simply by filling in a form having had no further advanced instructor training nor assessment but will simply have knocked off the required hours perhaps over a couple of months.