In this industry, nothing replaces experience. Experience is gained through hundreds, if not thousands of hours, of flying different aircraft of various complexity through adverse conditions and various abnormal conditions before progressing to the ranks of "airline cadet." In my book, an airline cadet is a multi-thousand hour pilot with years of experience flying as flight instructor, night cargo, air ambulance, etc in all sorts of aircraft. Then, and only then, should they be deemed ready to fly hundreds of passengers. I'm sorry but a 250hr "cadet" has no place whatsoever within the ranks of an airline training department. Those of you who believe it's a good system have simply fallen prey to airline managements' desperate solution to a shortage of QUALIFIED pilots, and the only reason those folks have now made it to 11,000hr training CAs is because they had the good fortune to not experience a life threatening event that required experience they did not have. However, if you want examples of that, look no further than Colgan 3407 and Pinnacle 3701, to name a couple. In both of those cases, had the CA/FOs had the proper seasoning and experience, those crashes would not have happened. I'm not saying accidents don't happen to seasoned experienced airline pilots, but the chances are greatly reduced.
The USA got it right, at least the first stages of it, by requiring 1500hrs and an ATP before flying 121. That's a start. Europe and the rest of the world would be wise to follow...unfortunately it's just a matter of time before something tragic happens to create enough awareness. I'll say it again, low experience has no place in an airline cockpit, folks...and ab-initio programs are by no means a replacement for this.
You want a good ab-initio program? Grab a 3000hr experienced pilot with tons of night/icing/flight instruction/etc, and THEN "sponsor" him/her into an airline. Now you will have a seasoned aviator no stranger to experience who will be slowly immersed into the airline world. The dividends of that are huge. But a 250hr graduate in an A320 or 737 whose CA becomes incapacitated...or worse, flying with a CA that puts them in an unfortunate situation and they don't have the experience nor fortitude to assert themselves to refuse? That is a recipe for disaster. It's just a matter of time, and we've already seen it in the USA.
This is just my humble opinion, but then again I'm a traditionalist and somewhat "old school"... and I believe the past tragedies confirm what I'm talking about.