Greenie Lynx Pilot,
You confuse one sentence that potentially goes off thread with a wider observation on the decline of service personnel terms and conditions, with the fundamental main point with the current situation in the ambiguous state of the future education of service children and a recent very dubious software driven survey by an MOD agency.
As to any correlation about merits of public/state education - don't be daft, of course there are some extremely good state schools (I know because I went to one).
Your wider point about increasing the value and worth of service personnel and adjusting their Ts&Cs is certainly nothing to do with CEA, and if in your environment you have that mediocre contingent then I feel sorry for you. I do not work in such an environment, infact the opposite, I work with some exceptionally talented people that sacrifice alot as a 'servant of the crown' but they do so knowing that their wife and children are cared for.
The big point I was making was by all means remove CEA, more than happy with that - but before the MOD starts commissioning statistical surveys from one of it's agencies that it should inform the service parents of the alternatives. The MOD cannot have it's cake and eat it, it cannot remove mobility for a couple of years, and then all of a sudden request a posting away from home base if the child is half way through key academic stages.
This my friend is the concerns of any service family, and not a mediocre work force.
Once the MOD has told service families what it proposes to replace CEA, then Greenie all of your mediocre work makes that you believe have the misfortune to be 'trapped' can all make an informed decision about how they want their families brought up.
It still will not get you a pay rise though!