How many crashes or near misses could be attributed to seamen who actually FAILED their test of the required knowledge? Positions such as this as well as firefighters, policeman, etc used to take the people with the top scores to enter the training. Then the requirement changed to “passing the test. Some test scores went from needing about a 97% score to be hired down to 70% to be hired as long as you were in the right category. When that did not even work the tests got easier. We are in big trouble here in the USA.
It’s not like the Army where they could drop grenade throwing as a requirement to graduate because new recruits could not throw far enough. - https://popularmilitary.com/us-army-general-says-new-recruits-not-strong-enough-throw-grenades/