There is no doubt that in our headlong rush to educate everybody, we arelowering our standards," warned one critic. "Soon the streets will beswarming with people who know absolutely nothing... but who can wavetheir qualifications like banners at a football match," anotherpredicted.
All that separates our two critics is time. The first warning is fromNobel prizewinning poet T S Eliot writing in 1948, and the second fromBooker Prize short-listed novelist Andrew O'Hagan writing in the DailyTelegraph at the end of January 2008. But concerns over the erosion ofthe British education system go back much further than this.
From 1880, when the then government amended its Elementary Education Actto make schooling compulsory for children up to the age of 12, theintellectual elite has been up in arms about the attempts of successivegovernments to widen access to education.
At a time when there were only around 50,000 students in UKuniversities, Eliot was railing against rising numbers entering highereducation, and advocating that admissions be cut by two-thirds. Andtoday, O'Hagan is one of many critics of the recent announcement that -driven by the need to remain competitive in the global economy - anumber of employers, including McDonald's, will be awardingnationally-recognised qualifications accredited by the Qualificationsand Curriculum Authority (QCA).
What lies at the heart of their concern? Are they really engaged in anoble defence of academic standards, or is it something less honourableprovoking their outrage?
Work and pensions secretary James Purnell made his views clear when hesaid that "for a long time, we've had a slight snobbery about vocationalqualifications, and we need to get over that. If they're equivalentskills - and the independent organisation (QCA) in charge of saying theyare confirms that - then we should recognise the skills people aregetting."
Readers can make up there own minds whether the critics of McDonald'sbeing able to award QCA-accredited qualifications are 'slight' snobs.But what irks me is that many of these critics demonstrate a profoundlack of the academic rigour they so loudly claim to defend.
For example, one claimed to have "concerns about qualifications that arevery narrow and specific to one organisation, like McDonald's". What ashame that particular critic couldn't find the time to apply somecollege learning and do a little research. The QCA website makes itperfectly clear that the McDonald's course includes "finance, marketing,and HR".
However, the most shameful of today's critics are those who forget thatif the government of Eliot's day had buckled under the critical pressureof the poet and his elitist cronies, the university education that nowunderpins their livelihoods and their authority to pass comment may nothave been available to them.
And it is to these critics that I wish to pose a moral dilemma: a16-year old stays in education and works hard to gain the three A levelsrequired to go to university. Another 16-year old leaves school, gets ajob and, inspired by managers, works hard to gain an accreditedvocational qualification, equivalent to an A level. That same 16-yearold also enrols at a local college and achieves two A levels.
My question is this: should both of these young people be eligible toapply for the same courses at the same universities? And, all otherthings being equal, should they have the same opportunities to realisetheir true potential - just like you did? You decide.
The writer Aldous Huxley once sneered that "universal education hascreated an immense class of what I call the New Stupid". It is mysincere hope that the current crop of New Stupid intellectuals will notbe allowed to smother the potential of the young people in ourworkforce.
David Fairhurst is senior vice-president/chief people officer,McDonald's Restaurants Northern Europe.
