On the BBC website, those (like me) who mocked the new McQualifications get a right telling off by Mike Baker for being snobbish.

Hmm. Another chance to sound off about them. In numbered list format, even.

• It’s fine for companies to choose to train their staff and give them proof of having achieved a certain standard of competence in the company’s work. It’s hardly the concern of public awarding bodies.
• Despite a rhetoric of opening up the opportunities to gain qualifications to the less academic, these “qualifications” implicitly place the holder firmly in the “peon” class.
• At the same time, they create a further “under-peon” class of people who haven’t got them. So, they put people who haven’t got them at an unnecessary disadvantage in terms of getting jobs or promotion.
• Vocational qualifications being what they are, they will reward those people who can fill out the standard phrases in their standard portfolio in a standard way. This means that people who are actually good at being shift supervisors but rubbish at documenting their achievements will do worse than those who are good at collecting documents.
• Any one of average intelligence can pick up the skills needed to work in most jobs, with a bit of experience. What difference does a piece of paper make except to limit access to those jobs?
• There is a big UK push for all under-18s having to be in “education or training.” Hmm. Education that stretches the mind, maybe. Training in craft skills, maybe. Training in tasks that any able-bodied person can pick up in a couple of weeks, no.

Is objecting to McQuals for McJobs being “snobbish” toward the recipients? I think the disdain they rouse comes from a recognition that these are worthless bits of paper that just attempt to draw an obscuring veil over the massive deskilling of workers and the failure of the education system to develop people’s real potential.