I do so agree. Having a good degree is great but it is wrong to value that person more highly than a good craftsman. Both are equally useful in their own field.
I have come across a few students from our local uni in the course of my work and I have been deeply unimpressed. Some people are just not suited to academia and I think it is a great shame that from the start of their education children are not developed according to their talents.
As an ex primary teacher I was really saddened when the emphasis was placed on maths, literacy and science almost to the exclusion of other life skills. Previously we could have afternoons when we had lessons in arts and crafts, design technology, cooking, baking, sewing and even knitting. Then the tests became really important as schools were judged according to the performance of pupils in tests so the focus had to shift to this.
It sort of emphasised the importance of being academically able from an early age. I had children who struggled with classwork but were brilliant artists - this meant they had success in an area that increased their sense of self worth. The acadenic focus meant that children felt they were failing from an early age.
As for university degrees - some seem just an excuse to go to university rather than to make a student more 'useful' to the world.
Education is a very difficult debate. The current system is clearly failing on so many levels; it is not creating the workforce to take the country forward, it is not opening up happy and fulfilled lives for many people and it is not fostering a sense of community that would make life so much more pleasant. It is possibly unfair to lay all these problems at education’s feet. Some would say it is modern materialism that is the real culprit, others would blame the decline of family structure and religion; but surely correctly managed the 12 or 13 years of basic education could form the foundation for a better society. I haven’t the magic solution and it doesn’t appear the current crop of politicians have either. Perhaps the decline is irreversible because it has gone so far there is nobody left with the background to reverse it. I have to confess I am strongly in favour of selection in the sense that education should be matched to ability and objectives. We now have a comprehensive system that I feel was built on an incorrect conclusion. The perceived wisdom was that the Secondary Moderns were failing because the 11+ created “failures” but I believe the problem was that the process also selected widely different levels of resources – correctly (equally) funded Secondary Moderns would have succeeded. As you can guess I am a product of a Grammar School going on to an engineering degree at a time (mid sixties) when it really meant something. I think we still need a level of excellence with qualifications that only 10% or less can achieve not the current ludicrous target of 50%, the ultimate definition of dumbing down. In parallel with this we need other selections to create craftsmen, administrators, salesmen and all the other specialities that make the economy work and keep social systems functioning. The problem with this concept is how can you give youngsters the initial exposure to a broad range of experiences to allow them to show their talents. Finding this formula would also give them a broad basic education which hopefully would foster common sense and so called life skills to allow them to manage such aspects of their lives as finance, diet, relationships and hobbies (a real basis for a good life). From that you have to hope self fulfilment and social cohesion would follow. It must be better than the current situation where the choices are fudged and delayed until we have a crop of “graduates” at 21 with low grade degrees and little sense of direction that employers then have to start training.
