If dummy articleship was the problem, the Institute should have done some introspection to analyse the root cause of the problem.
The problem with articleship is that its too long, the whole idea of articleship is to get practical experience, but unfortunately there are very few big firms where one can get good "Exposure". Working in a smaller firm might give varied exposure, but there is no scale whatsoever, and the difference between the Big 4 and other firms is unbelievable, for example the way an audit is done by any of the Big 4 is so different from that done by a smaller firm. And moreover the experience of working in a small firm just DOES NOT count.
There needs a serious re-look at the concept of articleship. Personally I believe that articleship should be manadatory only for CAs who want to start private practise, the majority of CAs work in Industry and for them its just a waste of 3 precious years.