you souldn't have to pay the employer for a job.
If you are learning 'on the job' that then becomes education - something for which you have had to pay throughout your youth, however indirectly. Most employers/trainers also understand all too well that the vast majority of their 'pupils' in bushcraft will head off to do their own thing when they have got what they need. I suppose charging aspirant instructors prevents the freeloaders from pirating the system.
Perhaps there should be a set up similar to that of the mountain guides. While you are training, you are an aspirant guide whose progress is monitored by a fully qualified guide. Once you have completed your 'apprenticeship' and passed the various modules proscribed by the governing body, then you become a guide and are free to operate on your own merit. It's a long old process during which the aspirant does not earn a huge amount and has to pay for the necessary elements of the course but it does ensure the out-and-out quality of guides the world over.
Something as structured as this would not appeal to the bushcraft community who thrive on the freedom to go off and do what they will; but there should be a minimum set of standards and skills that aspirant bushcraft instructors should fulfil before they declare themselves as fully fledged instructors. Most of these, if not all of them, could be achieved through experience gained from practice but one then has the challenge of deciding who should oversee the whole thing - a complete and utter nightmare!
I suppose the upshot of what I'm trying to say is that you should expect to pay something for your training - education, if you will - but what you do with it afterwards, either working with your trainer or setting up on your own, is up to you.