All this talk about lowering instructor qualifcation standards is interesting and begs the question, has the quality of instructing been improved since the interduction of the requirement for the CPL theory exams to allow instruction to be carried out?
I'm not sure that it has but it has led to the present day shortage.
On the other side of the coin has the quality of newby comercial pilots improved, some postings on PPrune would indicate the contrary.
I do think instructors should have a decent wage but obviously one of problems is with ever increasing running cost due to excessive and lets face it, sometimes ludicrous certification costs which are mandatory on the planes we use so the instructor is one place where money can be saved.
The catch 22 is of course if we increase the costs to the student then they decide to spend their money on something else so we won't need the instructor anyway.
It's a bit like when the NPPL was interduced (which I think is a good thing) and while being discussed at the club where everybody was more or less in favour our instructor at the time said "yes its a good idea but if they hadn't made it so akward in the first place we wouldn't be praising them now" in other words keep the masses hungry and they will appreciate dry bread.