Students sitting the B1 modules have the A licence also, but you can apply for the A after 12 months relevant experience, and the B 12 months after that, and again, the key word is RELEVANT experience.
With a combined college and university course...(well affiliated...), we can take a group of 100 students....
intake - 100
End of year 1 - 95 remain. NVQ L2 awarded (this way we meet our achievement quota)
Start of year 2 - 85 remain. There are always students who can't even get this far and don't get invited back.
End of year 2 - hopefully still 85, but again can drop due to job prospects. (RAF, etc). Award of BTEC National Certificate and C+G Level 3.
Start of Uni (year1) - 56 places available, but the preference is given to the high achievers from the colleges and adult learners with an engineering background.
End of year 1 - usually around the 40 mark. Some can't get to grips with the degree, and part of the learning agreement is to complete a certain number of degree exams (taken at the same time as the EASA modules)
By the end of year 2, the 40 will hopefully remain.
Last year, I believe there were only a handful (15?) who attained all of the EASA modules. (The majority managed the degree). 5 of those went on to attempt the top up year for BSc, and the remainder tried to get a job in industry. In total, 12 students were selected by BA as trainees. By all accounts, they are doing well. Some will get the B1 bit of paper within three years, and the others will stay as mechanics or move on to new things.
As you can see, even with estimated numbers, we are not flooding the industry by any stretch of the imagination. There are 4 other similar schools across the country.
By the way, have BA scrapped their apprenticeship entry for this year? One of my students applied for it, was conditionally accepted, and received a letter last week claiming not enough people had applied.....