Triadic
How you can expect someone to teach something they have only just learnt is beyond me (except perhaps with very strict supervision). It does not seem to occur in any other field?
I agree about the strict supervision and so does CASA that is what the 100 hours direct supervision of Grade 3 Instructors is for. However it is often diluted and of little real use, again it comes down to the quality of the CFI.
As far as not occuring elsewhere, hello? How about leaving school at 17, go to Uni for 3 years to get teaching degree, get job as teacher? Even funnier is do a 3 year Arts degree or anything for that matter and all that is required is a one year dip ed. You then get paid more to teach than a 3 year trained teacher even though you only spent 1 year learning how to teach.
Teaching someone how to do something that you have only just learnt yourself is quite easy really. I don't see a problem. Sure an Instructors responses to student problems will be limited until they have seen more students with various problems or bad habits, but the learning curve is quite steep.
How about parents or siblings teaching relatives to drive?
R-F-G
Helicopters Instructors appear to be only of the Grade 1 & 2 variety and must have 400 hours flight time in helicopters.
I also think raising the minimum
may help but there are issues with that as well. Where to gain the hours? Is 500 hours of bush charter for someone who does not set themselves high standards going to give them a solid background for instructing? Sure they may be a good aircraft manipulator. Don't make the mistake of thinking a good pilot makes a good instructor or vice versa. In my experience the best instructors I have seen were only average at manipulating the controls but they knew their stuff and could teach.