Climbs like a dog - whilst it might not be unreasonable to check 'instructional ability' in some way, checking flying skills on a FI revalidation is irrelevant. I know the UK CAA wanted to continue as they had pre-JAR; however, they weren't prepared to file a National Variance to back up their chuntering opinions as this would have attracted flak from the JAA! In fact they went out of their way to tell us what a good idea the seminar was..... Sorry - either you sign up to JARs or you contract out of them altogether!
This 'opportunity' to re-introduce mandatory testing was first suggested by FIEs at one of their symposiums. Convince me that this suggestion wasn't financially influenced, that there has been a worrying downward trend in instructional standards or that all FEs have been consulted and perhaps I'd feel different.
6-yearly testing would be totally meaningless. If an FI hadn't learned how to instruct by then, then perhaps he never would. If this is made mandatory, many of those 'get the hours any old how and go to the airlines asap' FIs would have come and gone in 6 years, leaving only those who choose to instruct because that's what they want to do, not just hours-build pre some 737 bucket-and-spade RHS job.....
An alternative? Make the first FI revalidation of a new FI's career include a mandatory revalidation proficiency check - not 'every second revalidation' as is proposed? That way the development of instructional ability can be adequately proven and thereafter the FI should continue to revalidate as at present