As many people have already mentioned there is more than one issue at stake here.
This chap obviously wasn't ace of the base, but that doesn't excuse a training regime where obvious failings are ignorned. Not everyone is cut out to sit in the cockpit of an airliner, but since the airlines no longer train and thoroughly test their own cadets, it is very difficult to judge who is good and who is merely adequate.
I have trained and flown with many people who are able to pass the exams and get through flight tests first time. Does that mean that they are actually any good?
Nope, no way. Many schools are exam factories and whilst there are some very smart and capable people coming through the system, there are an equal number of people who are frankly out of their depth. Fortunately modern jet a/c are a piece of cake to fly on a normal day to day basis and we get away with it.
It's when things go t*ts up that you really find out that the person sitting next to you is about as much use as chocolate teapot.
It is sad that it takes an incident like this to highlight the problems, good safety management means that we should be looking for problems rather than reacting to them. Has this industry got complacent since there hasn't been a fatal accident for such a long time?
I hope not, but since the vast majority of problems are still caused by human error, then having people sitting up the front who really aren't good enough and haven't got the experience or training to drag themselves out of the poop, then I'm not hopeful.