Well, maybe they were discontinued after your regime ATCO Two....or if not, they might well have continued in name only. Certainly some of the people we got should never have started training with us. In the last few years we've had a much more robust system of assessment.
TAD: Regarding your point about the fact we get trainees posted straight from the college: That's true....However, they have not become used to a particular traffic level, and we do attempt to pick the more promising ones.....we also put them through the equivalent of the old 'six weeks OJT' after which we make a yes/no decision before commencing the UTP.