Hi all,
1) Are private students being trained the same way as MAS/AA cadets? Read that private students are being grossly mistreated in MFA. This is in terms of ground school training materials and priority for flying. Also read that students there were segragated and discriminated (treated as 3rd class citizens) by the school.
As a private student in HMA, I can say that we are treated equally, if not better than MAS cadets who have more restrictions placed upon them with respect to leave applications etc.
2) What is the intructor: student ratio?
Not too sure. ~20 instructors for ~200 cadets? (includes FIs and GIs)
3) Are the training facilities (of good standard?
Training facilities are near excellent. Each ground school classroom has a PC and projectors, and it is fully air conditioned. Our sim (ALSIM with glass cockpit) is new and well maintained.
4) Are instructors professional and approachable?
The instructors? Well, there are bad apples (the new CI - a screaming squeaky-voiced know-it-all ex-airforce pilot), Capt S.A (old CFI who's since moved on to head the MPL program) - does two-headed snake ring any bells? and Capt N - (quite a few students have ended up with bruised arms thanks to him, but a decent bloke overall.. among others) A few new arrivals this year : Maktab 01 from the RMAF Training College who recently left (janji keling) and Capt Z (ex-MFA CFI)
Some issues of lesser concern are food and social life.
FOOD! Yes. Typical malay food. Had some health issues recently (20-odd students down with severe food poisoning) but the school changed caterers so I guess it's better now. There's a mamak right outside our school too.
Social life - Keep in mind you're living on an island so it gets old after a while. You'll be staying in the hostel relatively far from everywhere so you'll have to rent a car/bike or bring your own. Good points? Duty Free alcohol. Tourists. The Beach. Quite a good combination 
Feel free to comment on any other issues not mentioned!
Expect delays though. Plenty of cock-ups - AVGAS shortage, no flying for 2 weeks due to shortage of life jackets (!), bad planning etc. As a result, batch 3 is now 6 months overdue. Batch 4 is 4 months overdue. Imagine what the rest of the batches are like. Batch 14 just came in last week. I've no idea how the school is going to manage.
cheers