I think you'll find once upon a time the failure rate was quite bad, 1/3 of people or so not making it. Now it's terrible. Of one of the most recent 'large' courses that are passing through the college, out of over 50 people only 16 people remain, their fate yet to be decided! One course had only 9 people passing last week and getting a posting and of those some had been recoursed multiple times!
The course is too short now and there are not enough good instructors to go around. It'd be interesting to know how much each trainee on £10k 'costs' compared to students on the old salary. I wouldn't be surprised if it was now more! You can't pile em high and sell em cheap.