UK NEWS

GET DIPLOMA ‘FOR DOING A PAPER ROUND’

NEWS DELIVERY: Now it can get a diploma

Saturday June 7,2008

By Express Education Correspondent

Comment Speech Bubble Have your say(5)

THE work-related diplomas Gordon Brown hopes will replace A-levels were slammed last night, after it emerged that pupils could receive one for carrying out a paper round.

Education chiefs are worried that students will gain the qualifications – which begin in September – without any relevant work experience.

Ministers have claimed that the courses will give 14 - to 19-year-olds employer-based learning.

The diplomas include a minimum of 10 days’ work experience, but it does not have to be in a relevant field.

So pupils can pass a construction diploma without ever having visited a building site. And part-time work will also count – even if it is unrelated.

One education source said: “In theory, a paper round would count.”

Campaign for Real Education chairman Nick Seaton said: “Ministers have made a complete muddle of these diplomas.

“If a youngster is doing a vocational qualification, they need some experience in the relevant business field.”

The Civil Engineering Contractors Association’s Joe Johnson said: “Pupils have to get their hands dirty.”

But the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority said: “It is not the purpose of the diploma to make young people job-ready.”

GET DIPLOMA ‘FOR DOING A PAPER ROUND’

08.06.08, 9:33am

How often must I say it? The International Baccalaureate is the only way to go.

• Posted by: JohnnyB • Report Comment

DUMB, & DUMBER

08.06.08, 4:45am

Just how low are these socialist fools going to set the bar?

For wiping my a$$ on Gordon Brown printed bog paper this morning must be worth a degree with honours surely!?

• Posted by: moorlok • Report Comment

DIPLOMA'S

07.06.08, 6:13pm

The teenagers in this Country are already as thick as pig ****. What are labour trying to do? It looks like they are ensuring the Country reverts into something out of the stone age. Half of today's youth, can't even string a sentence together and dribble at the mouth. What a great idea, to make this waste of a generation, walk around clutching bits of paper, they think will land them cushy jobs. Arent we preparing them well, for adult life. What we should be doing is birching the lot of them and setting them to work with shovels and making them clear the mountains of dog waste and rubbish, that most of the illiterate morons cause.

• Posted by: Lucabrasi • Report Comment

CAN YOU ADAM N' EVE IT

07.06.08, 10:39am

Just how low will these idiots set the bar.
Prizes for all,i'm thick as a brick but at this rate I can qualify to be a brain surgeon.
Hmmm,could quite fancy that.

• Posted by: sweetypie • Report Comment