COLUMNISTS One day, academic snobs may brag about their workplace qualifications as proudly as degrees in dead languages. Just imagine some old buffer buttonholing another as follows: “Ah Frobisher, I see you are wearing your Biffa College tie! If I recall correctly Professor Trefusis tutored you in wheelie bin studies at the Nuneaton depot? And then you graduated magna cum laude in skip handling? Good show!”
It is wrong to mock. Workplace training has the scope to raise the woeful skill levels of British workers, increasing economic competitiveness. But the government needs to provide stronger backing. It should, for example, allow companies to award qualifications with wider recognition than the certificates dished out after internal training courses. Degrees, for example.
