AEOps include people with degrees in technical and scientific subjects, so whilst the minimum qual was 3 O levels (English, Maths and Physics, basically) the vast majority were better qualified - some very much better qualified. Many had in fact gone for Pilot/Nav, which required 5 O levels, the three AEOps needed plus any other two.... so, RA, your jibe is a typical piece of rubbish - the educational requirements for the top job were little tougher than those for siggie, and I doubt anyone (Pilot/Navg or AEOp) stood that great a chanve of getting in on the bare minima.
The quals got you as far as OASC, where you'd then spend 5 days or so going through a battery of tests, leading to perhaps 1 in 10 succeeding in becoming aircrew. As you are obviously too unbalanced to have made it through OASC I wonder WTF you are doing on Pprune at all?
Some siggies doubtless wouldn't retrain too well, but the majority would, I suspect, have the intelligence and drive required to take on a new role. I imagine there's more of a feeling that by populating the RAF with DE's there'll be nobody around feeling grumpy about being shafted, the 'clean slate' allows you to get away with whatever you want as there's nobody around to point out that the terms of service have just nosedived again.
I spent 23 years in the RAF as aircrew, and I have never since (or before) met a group of people better at adapting, 'sucking it up' when needed, or more motivated to get a job done. To suggest these people are somehow not up to it is bollox - a few might not cut the mustard, but it's plain wrong to assume "nobody will hack it and we might as well start out afresh".
Siggie skills have been outlined above - part of the problem is that those spouting the rubbish have no bloody idea what they are talking about, I sincerely hope these numpties have no input into the future of the ex MPA crews.
Dave