I agree with many of the general comments made by Impartial, but I am a bit bemused by the idea that offering free retraining is a sign of lack of confidence in the quality of tuition provided by the EPTA. If anything it is exactly the opposite. Any school which expects to have a high failure rate will not wish to offer free retraining because the cost will be too high. If a significant proportion of students were to fail, they would soon fill up the classrooms, leaving no spaces for fee paying students.
Instead of asking why a school would offer free retraining, it would more illuminating to ask why it would not. Why is it that those schools which claim to have a very high pass rate (up to 94% quoted in some cases) are unwilling to offer free retraining for the very small numbers of students who would need it?
I agree that potential students should visit as many schools as possible and talk to existing students (in private), to get a balanced view of the schools. When talking to the staff they should ask whether the school offers free retraining, and if not why not. I suggest a long period of reflection is appropriate if the reply to this question is anything like "No we don't, because our first time pass rates are so high that you will not require free retraining". CAA statistics show that over the year from 01 Nov 2001 to 31 Oct 2002 less than 74% of all the ATPL(A) exams taken were passed. This means that more than 26% of these exams had to be repeated. Only those students who are confident that their exams are going to be among 74% should be happy with the idea that retraining must be paid for.
Your suggestion that the prices quoted might not include many essential items might be true of some schools but it is not true in the case of the EPTA. The quoted price (just over £1680 plus VAT)is approximately half that charged by most other schools and includes the full two groundschool modules, plus free retraining where required. This price covers the full tuition fees but excludes the usual things such as, food and lodgings, daily travel to school, CAA examination fees, CRP5, electronic calculator, pens, pencils and protractors. As stated in my previous post, this discounted price is available only as part of a whole training package, including flight training. For those wishing to purchase only the groundschool training, the undiscounted fee is £3600 plus VAT, which also includes free retraining for any subjects that they fail.
In considering the comments made by various contributors to this string, readers should note that the EPTA is mentioned only because we are offering exceptionally good value for money. The staff of competing schools ( such as Send Clowns) have a vested interest in discouraging you from learning more about us. They do not wish to reduce their prices nor to offer free retraining.