Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Horses, Nails and Hair

Well bang go my chances of improving myself with a GNVQ in nail painting. The news today is that schools will not be allowed to count these vocational courses as 4 GCSEs on their league tables any more.

This move is only about ten years overdue. Vocational qualifications should be recognised, (a plasterer has a set of valuable skills that I do not), but the desire to compare schools at a glance by over simplistic league tables results in every possible qualification being lumped in together.

Canny Heads immediately look for whatever course gives the most points for the least effort and before you knew it, every child ends up with a qualification to look after a horse.

I suppose you could say 'Hair today, gone tomorrow...'

5 comments:

RapidBlue said...

so what happens - you have a GNVQ that is worth 4 GCSE and along comes the guvvermint and now the ones being taken are only worth 1 GCSE? So you go for a job and your prospective employers are confused by the change as well - so you dont get a chance as the employers think YOUR GNVQ is only worth 1 GCSE?

We had this on the change from O level to GCSE and every change since!

Somebody is making a lot of money out of these changes - I thought in the current climate we were supposed to be saving money - oh wait the councillors are voting themselves pay rises again........

Anonymous said...

Yo frank fella. This is even better than before for the heads. The less able children will be entered for these quals instead of proper GCSEs and they will only apear on stats for the GCSEs they take.
So if they do a GNVQ in dj-ing and gcses in eng, maths and science they will only be counted for the 3 gcses. Its a result - encourage all the less able to do dud subjects that won't mean anything outside of school. They'll still ba able to stack shelves, flip burgers and generally think the jobs aren't good enough for them.
I once saw a young inner city londoner saying she was a qualified nail technician and justified being on the dole because there's no jobs out there for her and why should she apply for jobs that she's not qualified for.
See, everyones happy!!
Unless you pay you taxes for this system where the lazy and idiotic are pandered to ad nauseum.

Anonymous said...

I've had a little (indirect) experience of children from schools being farmed out to an FE college in order to gain a vocational qualification. They seem, predominantly, to be poorly educated, unable to follow simple instructions, perform simple calculations, and to behave and speak reasonably.
The baseline qualifications, prior to learning ANY trade are basic arithmetic, basic English comprehension and an ability to write unambiguously, along with some social skills. (stop swearing, spitting, and handling genitalia at every opportunity, wear trousers around waist, not thighs. Keep your underwear UNDER trousers.
An ability to plan their toilet visits and make them during the generous break periods would be desirable, too.
If students cannot learn from masters they know despise them, they ought not to behave despicably!

Charlie said...

Before we talk about vocational qualifications , I suggest we look at the german System- the below is from Wikipedia

The Master craftsman is the highest professional qualification in crafts and is a state-approved grade. The education includes theoretical and practical training in the craft and also business and legal training, and includes the qualification to be allowed to train apprentices as well. The status of Master craftsman is regulated in the German Gesetz zur Ordnung des Handwerks, HandwO (Crafts and Trades Regulation Code).

We have a long way to go. I suggest that all trades have a legal definition. So a craftsman is someone who has undergone a 5 year apprenticeship and passed the exams. A technician is someone who is educated to NVQ4/HNC and an engineer is someone who has a degree and is chartered.

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