haltonapp (#1),
After five years of flying in war, and a further five years in peace, I was an RAF ATC from 1955 to 1972, including 3 years as an instructor at Shawbury. But no experience on Area Radar. (We have a MPN11 on frequency here, who can remedy that deficiency).
IMHO, Door Slider (#2) has answered your question. But your unspoken question is: Does the Civil ATC Training system produce a "superior product" (for Civil purposes) to the RAF (Shawbury) system ? I leave that open for discussion, but will only note that many RAF Controllers, after the end of their SSCs, made successful careers in Civil Air Traffic Control.
I think we may have a hot potato here !
Danny42C.