Sunday 25 January 2009

Undiplomatic

Yet more consternation about the pointless diplomas of the pointless Ed Balls, who attended the same school as Ken Clarke had done, but after it had been driven out of the state sector in which it had found itself in Clarke’s day, and thus restricted itself, no longer to those who had passed an exam, but instead to those whose parents could afford to pay the fees.

Grammar schools, O-levels, A-levels.

Technical schools, offering equally respected qualifications.

And Secondary Moderns, imparting exactly as much academic and technical knowledge as most people really need, and forming economically and socially active, culturally and politically engaged people, in very marked contrast to that which has so often replaced them.

All else is but gimmickery, distraction and deceit.

24 comments:

  1. aren't diplomas exactly the attempt to meet the demand for "offering equally respected qualifications"?

    if not, why not?

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  2. And attempt, perhaps, although I am not sure even of that.

    But they assume the priority of academia (or, at least, of an over-eaxmined caricature of academia), and work from there.

    Why should any, say, electrician employee someone just because a teacher had said that he was a "qualified" electrician? No electrician has ever said that he was a qualified electrician.

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  3. Er, yes they do. All electricians are "qualified electricians", otherwise they are rogue traders, and I suggest that neither you or I would let someone into our houses to fix something who wasn't qualified.

    That qualification need not be academic - indeed, some of the best are very much on the job, practical nature - but it does need to contain some element of training. This applies to all professions.

    A diploma, incidentally, is not what makes someone qualified as an electrician, but simply provides the groundings for more specialised vocational training with an employer.

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  4. Exactly my point.

    People who have been signed off as electricians by teachers, not by electricians, are employable as electricians.

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  5. Hang on. You said you wanted "Technical schools, offering equally respected qualifications"

    presumably those wouldn't be by electricians and the like? They would be by teachers, albeit teachers trained in this area, providing the grounding for specialised employment.

    So, ignoring your point about "no electrician is a qualified electrician", when we both know they are, what do the Diplomas do that isn't this? We can argue about the suitability of their content, but not the intention surely?

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  6. Heaven knows to what school you'd be sent!

    Unfortunately, you clearly went to a very well-connected one, doubtless at public expense.

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  7. I don't know why you bother with the likes of Cav. Thick as pig shit but think that the people they get to lord it over are even worse. And don't see the point of the skill trades because they think that those things are just there like the weather.

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  8. Please do not swear on my blog.

    But bring back grammar schools.

    And technical schools.

    And Secondary Moderns.

    And borstals, for Cav.

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  9. Where did Cav go to school? He can neither read nor write English, so it must have been in Britain. But where?

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  10. And who paid for it?

    You did, dear reader.

    You did.

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  11. "No electrician has ever said that he was a qualified electrician."

    This is perhaps the most easily disproved wrong statement you have ever made.

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  12. I think I've spotted the problem here.

    You people thought that I meant "No electrician has ever said that he *himself* was a qualified electrician". Well, if I had meant that, then I would have written it.

    Not that that would have made any difference, since, as Anonymous 15:36 points out, you people can neither read nor write English.

    And you assume that no one else can, either.

    What a waste of public money that could have been spent on the bright children of the poor or of middle-earners.

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  13. To whom, then, does the word "he" refer in "No electrician has ever said that he was a qualified electrician"?

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  14. Cheryl is an idiot, probably educated at Oxbridge and a so-called comprehensive which was actually a grammar school in all but name. It is perfectly obvious that David meant the following:

    "Why should any electrician employ someone who has been described by a teacher as a qualified electrician, but who has not been described by an electrician as a qualified electrician?"

    David chose the wording he did because it is more elegant, albeit also more ambiguous.

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  15. If I say "No electrician has ever said that he was a qualified electrician", it is obvious that I mean "There are electricians who have never been described by other electricians as qualified electricians". Anyone who does not see this merely proves David's point.

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  16. Well, I do not see what is ambiguous about it, Sunny, but very many thanks.

    And would that these places were "grammar schools in all but name". Grammar schools were academic, and therefore only open to the academically-inclined.

    As for Oxbridge, well, I honestly don't know. You hear of people taking Firsts there who were also JCR President, President of the Union, President of a major political club, editor of the student newspaper, and even several of these things at once.

    Now it doesn't matter how brilliant you are, there are still only so many hours in the day. So how hard can those Firsts possibly have been to get? In which case, how hard is it to get any other class of degree there?

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  17. Not quite, Xerxes, but you are in the right area.

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  18. It is pretty obvious that Oxbridge is easier than Durham. David rightly says that "You hear of people taking Firsts there who were also JCR President, President of the Union, President of a major political club, editor of the student newspaper, and even several of these things at once". Meanwhile, at Durham, David was none of these things and got a 2:1. We can assume that the general calibre of Durham is therefore much higher.

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  19. As I said, there are only so many hours in the day. If you do all these other things and still get a First, then the First cannot be too hard to get. Oxbridge, of course, does have to justify ever having admitted you at all, by certifying that you are brilliant. No such need afflicts anywhere else.

    I used to laugh at the people who slogged their guts out but were still going to get the same class of degree as I was, because that is what Durham awards as a BA, plain and simple. But not half as much as I laughed when it actually happened.

    Ah, happy days!

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  20. "I used to laugh at the people who slogged their guts out but were still going to get the same class of degree as I was, because that is what Durham awards as a BA, plain and simple."

    Maybe they learned more than you, though.

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  21. Well, you name it. Depends what they were reading, really.

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  22. That's certainly one way of putting it...

    I was in a Department which awarded Firsts to people reading for their second, third or sometimes fourth degrees (with a view to ordination), or whose examinations were in the translation of pre-seen (yes, pre-seen) extracts from ancient texts. I recall only two exceptions, neither of which reflected terribly well on the place...

    We all knew this, and so concentrated on getting an all-round education.

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