Hi Wingsward - to answer your questions.....
The "new" syllabus in the shape of new LOs should be issued by March this year for discussion. They are certainly leaner and meaner, but a lot of new stuff has been added as well, on to what we have now, so that we are not teaching jet pilots to fly Sopwith Camels. We have tried to get away from the "we know you are going to drive a car but just in case you ever drive a truck, have this question" syndrome (I say "we" because I am on the rulemaking committee, along with KLM, Lufthansa, Ryanair, Aer Lingus, etc., so there was a broad spectrum of opinion, and from native English speakers).
Because it is hard law, it will take some time to shove it through, but I'm sure the new LOs will be favourably received, especially on the helicopter side, which has been long neglected.
Those areas that have been flagged for alteration/deletion will have no more new questions written until then, and 1500 new questions per year will be written for the remaining subjects.
The big difference is that a lot of the subjects will have been marked as "underpinning knowledge", or something so basic it is not worth wasting a question on. Instead, questions will be framed on the assumption that the said facts are known anyway.
The question writers are people from the industry, like myself (another hat) - the technical reviewers, however, will be from local authorities, which can be a problem because some of them haven't a clue.
All the schools have to follow the basic learning objectives, so in that sense they will be much of a muchness - the difference will be in presentation (easily readable notes, graphics, etc) and how deeply they go into the subject - for example, we are always aware that the technical interview is a lot more important, which is where we teach to. The problem is that there is hardly any guidance in the LOs about how deeply to treat each subject - it's just luck as to whether the question writers know what they are doing, and no schoool I know has any confidence in the question bank as it now stands.
For example, the LOs might require a broad knowledge of malaria (fair enough), but some idiot question writer will show off and do a question on a very obscure sub-species such as Dingue Fever. Or there's the Human Factors questions which have been based on non-standardmarshmalllow pop psychology books such as the Ten Minute Manager.
I have (rather forcibly) stated that altering the LOs is one thing, but unless somebody with the right experience sits through and edits the question bank at source, much of it will be wasted.
To answer your question, though, he schools will all have to design their own courses, provided the LOs are covered.
Lastly, it has been proposed that the number of attempts for each subject be reduced to two.
Phil