Employers need employees with the right abilities to do the job. Is education fitting the nation’s workforce with the right abilities? When we compete on the world stage, how do we develop the right skills to grow the economy?
Posted by: J G | 23.01.2009 10:30am
I agree with edge big time.
Posted by: Jonathan Cuffe | 29.08.2008 06:39am
As an employer I'm in the middle, I support Lating and the classics and will happily give someone a job if they have an a-level in either latin or greek, it shows more than mere erudite learning, a desire for the best from an early age, which is why I don't support "these people" - the idea that they work long and hard to get a piece of paper is their own families fault, I agree that some people do come from bad places and deserve a chance, fine. But the majority are learning later in life because they wouldn't do it when the rest of us did, slowing many of us down in the process so I don't accept them, simply because I'm not funded to help people 20 years behind where they should be.
Also: I don't accept GCSE's or A-levlels in media, drama, IT (because you shouldn't have to prove you know it nowadays), art, sports science and so on. Its not just the faux vocational degrees, its also the faux qualifications before that - and it is those, by pretending to be worth something, that keep the majority as epsilons
Posted by: Lord Montague | 20.08.2008 03:28pm
"These people" are thinking that they will do well in a degree that they can be passionate about- these are fields of learning that they will never again have time to explore as fully, and it will keep cultural learning going, which would otherwise be extinguished, creating a world full of Epsilons who know nothing but how tdo practical work. A poor society indeed.
The "faux degrees" you mention are not at all that, they are the heir and successor courses to the practical qualifications like City and Guilds and HNDs that people long, long ago gained at technical or technology colleges, striving bravely to keep learning while working, often into the small hours after a day of grinding work, and seeking the help of teachers to guide them and qualify them at long last. To knock this, now that the courses have achieved degree status, is to disrespect those who struggled part time for so long and who are at last honoured by their children's rights to do this in more reasonable conditions.
Your views set us back a good few decades.Thankfully, forward looking companies welcome graduates from all disciplines, and recognise the value of diversity of back ground in management training scheme entrants.
Maybe your next contribution will be about the wisdom of sending kids up chimneys and preventing s from reading?
Posted by: Mr. Craig Thomas | 20.08.2008 10:19am
... I positively reject candidates with some academic qualifications. There are two kinds of academic degrees that light a warning light for me when I'm viewing CVs.
One is the totally academic academic stuff like Classical French or Latin - what are those people thinking??
The other is badly set out faux-vocational degrees like IT Management or Computer Science. They sound like a good idea, but I've found that people who learn that stuff out of a book are sooo much worse at it than people who learn on the job.
No idea what the solution is to that one. The first one, though - get rid of those degrees, or clearly label them as "this degree is for trustafarians only". Or something.
Posted by: Anonymous | 14.08.2008 09:43am
This is a classless society divided into
Five Socio-Economic groups.
Thoes who go to University, belong to Socio Groups 1-4
Doctors and Lawyers are at the bottom of Socio Group 4
Socio Group Five are skilled semi-skilled and unskilled .