McDonald's has responded angrily to criticism that the accreditation ofits management-level training into an A-level equivalent 'dumbs down'education standards. "There are those who have thought about it, andthen there are the snobs," says David Fairhurst, senior VP/chief peopleofficer, McDonald's Restaurants Northern Europe.
He adds: "The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority has independentlyassessed our training and if we are now giving someone a chance to usetheir qualification to go to university, then this has to makesense."
Fairhurst says he is disappointed qualification standards boards havefailed to unreservedly back the accreditation. City & Guilds, theorganisation that already partners with the burger giant to award staffNVQ Level 2 skills (up to GCSE), says it doubts the portability of thenew standard. "I'm not criticising the idea," says Bob Coates, managingdirector of the awarding division of City & Guilds. "We agree thatqualifying rather than training people reopens the learning experience -it's just the portability I worry about. I just don't see the majorityof businesses valuing it."
Both Flybe and Network Rail, which also announced similaraccreditations, have escaped a press backlash, possibly because theirqualifications are in engineering, and up to Level 4 (universitystandard). Fairhurst has defended McDonald's course, saying it includestraining on everything from marketing, HR, conflict management, hygiene,and profit and loss.
The accreditation debate is likely to be one of the first challenges forformer City & Guilds chairman Chris Humphries, now chief executivedesignate of the new UK Commission for Employment and Skills, whichopens next month. "We are sitting on a skills time-bomb," he says. "UKworkers urgently need a skills upgrade. Employers have to be at theheart of this, yet we must be careful that developing the system doesnot add to the layers of complexity that currently surround it."
- See David Fairhurst's column, p17.
