Peter Wilby
by Peter Wilby
Is our long love affair with education coming to an end? In a post-Christmas announcement that went largely unreported, Matthew Hancock, the Skills Minister, said non-graduates will be able to qualify, through apprenticeships, as lawyers, accountants, and chartered engineers. It marks a rare reversal of a century-old trend: For longer and longer periods of full-time education to be required from anyone aspiring to a professional career. It has been called “the diploma disease” or “the qualification spiral”.
We take it as axiomatic that the longer you stay in school and university, the better you’ll do in life. Sixty years ago you could still enter most professional jobs — in law, management, finance, the civil service, engineering, surveying, nursing, midwifery, and so on — with the equivalent of five GCSEs at grade A to C, sometimes less. Since then, employers and professional bodies have, by stages, raised the requirements: to one A-level, then two A-levels, then a degree. Now postgraduate study is needed before a young person starts work.
Education is regarded as an unmitigated good, of benefit to society, the economy and the individual. More means better, we think. In many respects, that is true: if we are a more tolerant, more inclusive society than we were 50 years ago, that is largely because most of us are better educated. But we should look more closely at how the demand for ever higher pre-career qualifications has affected professional and managerial competence, the educational experience and, above all, social mobility.
Take, first the demand for higher general qualifications: the batch of GCSEs and A-levels or a degree without which most employers won’t look at a job application. These credentials carry little or no information about knowledge and skills that may be of relevance to a particular career.
They are sifting devices, allowing employers to exclude those they perceive as unintelligent or lazy. They create, in students, an instrumental attitude to education. Subjects are studied and examinations taken, not because of enthusiasm for history, chemistry or German literature, but because they are required if the student is to progress.
As more employers and professions aspired to “graduate entry” status, universities developed degree courses — in business, accountancy, sports management, nursing, journalism, for instance — that purport to cover knowledge and skills directly relevant to careers. They allow students to lop a year or two off the period of full-time education before they actually start earning.
But if such courses are to escape the “Mickey Mouse” category, they must maximise academic content and marginalise mundane practical skills. A “vocational” course’s academic acceptability is in inverse proportion to the extent to which it teaches anything necessary for doing a job. The most quoted example is nursing, the shortcomings of which are highlighted in a report on patient deaths at the Mid-Staffordshire hospital trust. As Ilora Findlay, professor of palliative medicine at Cardiff University, put it, “A nurse can graduate without being able to apply the scientific basis of illness to real patients or respecting the importance of hands-on care”. Textbooks take priority over bedpans.
We have reached a situation where, for many, full-time education does not end and work begin until their mid-20s. We then accept people as competent doctors, accountants, engineers, and so on, for the next 40 years.
The Guardian
by Peter Wilby
Is our long love affair with education coming to an end? In a post-Christmas announcement that went largely unreported, Matthew Hancock, the Skills Minister, said non-graduates will be able to qualify, through apprenticeships, as lawyers, accountants, and chartered engineers. It marks a rare reversal of a century-old trend: For longer and longer periods of full-time education to be required from anyone aspiring to a professional career. It has been called “the diploma disease” or “the qualification spiral”.
We take it as axiomatic that the longer you stay in school and university, the better you’ll do in life. Sixty years ago you could still enter most professional jobs — in law, management, finance, the civil service, engineering, surveying, nursing, midwifery, and so on — with the equivalent of five GCSEs at grade A to C, sometimes less. Since then, employers and professional bodies have, by stages, raised the requirements: to one A-level, then two A-levels, then a degree. Now postgraduate study is needed before a young person starts work.
Education is regarded as an unmitigated good, of benefit to society, the economy and the individual. More means better, we think. In many respects, that is true: if we are a more tolerant, more inclusive society than we were 50 years ago, that is largely because most of us are better educated. But we should look more closely at how the demand for ever higher pre-career qualifications has affected professional and managerial competence, the educational experience and, above all, social mobility.
Take, first the demand for higher general qualifications: the batch of GCSEs and A-levels or a degree without which most employers won’t look at a job application. These credentials carry little or no information about knowledge and skills that may be of relevance to a particular career.
They are sifting devices, allowing employers to exclude those they perceive as unintelligent or lazy. They create, in students, an instrumental attitude to education. Subjects are studied and examinations taken, not because of enthusiasm for history, chemistry or German literature, but because they are required if the student is to progress.
As more employers and professions aspired to “graduate entry” status, universities developed degree courses — in business, accountancy, sports management, nursing, journalism, for instance — that purport to cover knowledge and skills directly relevant to careers. They allow students to lop a year or two off the period of full-time education before they actually start earning.
But if such courses are to escape the “Mickey Mouse” category, they must maximise academic content and marginalise mundane practical skills. A “vocational” course’s academic acceptability is in inverse proportion to the extent to which it teaches anything necessary for doing a job. The most quoted example is nursing, the shortcomings of which are highlighted in a report on patient deaths at the Mid-Staffordshire hospital trust. As Ilora Findlay, professor of palliative medicine at Cardiff University, put it, “A nurse can graduate without being able to apply the scientific basis of illness to real patients or respecting the importance of hands-on care”. Textbooks take priority over bedpans.
We have reached a situation where, for many, full-time education does not end and work begin until their mid-20s. We then accept people as competent doctors, accountants, engineers, and so on, for the next 40 years.
The Guardian
