How important are qualifications?

Who is belittling education? I'm curious as to why you might think that.

Once you are retired, qualifications are not impotent. Skills, personality, experience, values -all matter more. They matter hugely for working people too. For some jobs, qualifications are needed, of course.
I am not sure what the issue is. Who’s judging?

ViceVersa

Who is belittling education? I'm curious as to why you might think that.

Several people I have met over the years have done so.

I would think that only the uneducated would belittle education.

Barleyfields

I would think that only the uneducated would belittle education.

Well, the educated certainly won't, nobody spits into their own soup.

Education is never wasted. Those who decry it are usually those who didn't get very much of it, so regard those who did as lazy gits who preferred to sit around studying rather than get down to honest toil like them.

I think there is often a lot of misunderstanding about what the purpose of education is and what part it plays in later career success.

Time and again you will find some article about' how I left school at 16 and now I run my own business and am really rich'. as if to run a business( and be really rich) you needed a degree .

There is an element of this in the thread on whether we passed the 11 plus or not with people saying that despite failing the 11 plus they still went to university and as if you had to pass the 11 plus to get to university.

I blame a lot of this on Tony Blair. When I left school in 1961 (and went to university) there were many and various ways of getting into all the different professions. The basic education needed to become a solicitor or Chartered Accountant then was 3 O levels. Yo could enter at A level and degree level. The more qualifications you started with, the shorter your training and fewer the exams you took.

Tony Blair's obsession with getting 50% of all children to university (why? i could never work out) meant that accountancy and law all became graduate professions and the alternative routes were all blocked off.

In the days of maintenance grants and government paid fees. If a course was a degree course, degree courses qualified for this and non-degrees didn't, so more and more institutions made their courses into degrees.

I would like to see the university sector cut right back to teaching just academic subjects, as they used to, and the return of the polytechnics, offering a wide variety of different courses at different levels leading to entry to even the top professions like law. In other words back to the better fairer system we used to have.

There will always be jobs where a high knowledge level is required and a degree level eductaion is required, but it does not follow that they are the key for running a business or making a lot of money.

My solicitor friend has retired on a pension, well in excess of what I have ever earned. She has no degree, I have 2 degrees for work and one for pleasure. I was well paid and reached reasonable seniority, and have an occupational pension, but compare with her I am an also run. Does it matter?

My best friend at school, fed up with school at 16, left, did a secretarial course, and because she was really very clever and smart by 20 she was secretary to the Director of a big international company and more or less at the top of her career aspirations. She sat down and thought and took her handful of O levels to a solicitors and got a job as articled clerk, essentially as an apprentice. 6 years, and 5 exams later, she was a fully qualified solicitor as well trained as law graduate whose apprenticeship was much shorter. When it became possible for solicitors to become judges, she was seleccted to become a judge, and rose to the top of the profession

Reverse the last 2 paragaphs when reading.

But your friends are educated MOnica. Very well educated in their professional sphere. They will have had to pass many exams (more than 5) in order to qualify. ‘Being educated’ doesn’t simply mean having a degree.

Barleyfields

But your friends are educated MOnica. Very well educated in their professional sphere. They will have had to pass many exams (more than 5) in order to qualify. ‘Being educated’ doesn’t simply mean having a degree.

But the tendency nowadays is to judge whether someone is 'educated' or not, by when and at what level their formal education ended. This is why law, accountancy and other professions are now graduate only professions.

Professions not requiring a degree, however superfluous that may be, are down graded. I would like to see a return to the system where anyone can start professional training at different levels and without first spend 5-10 years getting A levels and a degree (building up a huge debt) before starting professional training. Not everyone can afford not to work for that long, or the debt.

I agree that wanting half of all children to go to university was a dire mistake. It lead to drastic dumbing-down of courses and qualifications. It left countless young people with useless degrees and huge debts.
Because the available funds then had to be spread very thinly it cut the financial support for students and left academic institutions severely short of money so they have increasingly depended upon foreign students.
Many careers became degree-only and the students have to work part time to survive.
The only winners are the Student Loans companies.

Since everyone has to attend school until 16, it would be better if they got something out of it. I do think there are people with the attitude Indigo describes, more so now as over the last couple of decades a degree hasn't neccessarily meant a successful career in the way that it once did for most people.
Some parents maybe don't aspire for their children to do too well at school, especially if their peers tend not to, they don't want their children to be "different" & they don't believe education matters that much anyway. It would be a shame if they gave this attitude to their children as it's rather a waste of children's time & also makes teaching more difficult.

I am one of those people who go to pieces in exams - I’ve failed every one I’ve taken, (although I did pass my 11+, I think at 10 I was too young to be scared). I had top marks throughout the year but just scraped a pass on the second or even third attempt at O levels & A levels, went to college, not university and so don’t have a degree. My last job, before retirement, required a degree, but I knew I could do it so I applied, quite honestly, and was given an interview. Luckily the interview board could see that I was capable of doing the job and gave it to me. I spent twelve years being very successful, only senior management knew ‘my secret’ but everyone was very happy with me.

I come from a family of highly educated individuals. What have I done with my MA.? Zilch.
The less said about that, the better.
But, the education my 3 children had, has given them lots of opportunities and financial security for their families.

I would like to see more apprenticeships, at all levels. My granddaughter is doing a degree apprenticeship, and her younger brother is interested, rather than racking up huge debt, but his school seem to be encouraging him to go to university. They don’t seem very interested in any other route.

Indigo8

ViceVersa

Who is belittling education? I'm curious as to why you might think that.

Several people I have met over the years have done so.

Really? That's very sad. I would never even think of belittling anyone for wishing to educate themselves. I don't think education is ever wasted, but I do think that these days, there seems to be a move to push everyone into further education, when in reality, there are some for whom that may not be the best course of action.

Qualifications are essential for a lot of professions.

So in my nearest family - the youngest member is working as computer scientist for the MOD - degree is in computer science.

Daughter working for a pharma company. - degree and doctorate - micro biology

Son works for environment agency - degree and masters - environmental sciences.

Not sure how they could do their jobs without the appropriate qualifications?

Other family members have other appropriate educational level for their career of choice.

So yes I think qualifications are very important

My job requires nurse registration....I completed a diploma to become a nurse....then was seconded to complete a degree ( hons)...then a PG Dip which i upgraded to a Masters later on....all of my qualifications have been paid for by public money and I have received a full nhs salary whilst studying....It would have been very expensive to pay for all this as an individual....but the job I'm currently doing requires these qualifications .

Not everyone is academic and university life is not necessarily for them. There should be more encouragement for Apprenticeships. As well as Doctors, Nurses and Solicitors we will always need skilled Carpenters, Electricians, Plumbers etc. My Nephew (not academic) became an Apprentice Motor Mechanic and absolutely loves his job. There is room for everyone and no one has a right to look down on or belittle somewhat because they feel their education and work style choices are not as good as theirs.

Qualifications are needed for lots of professions, but there should be more than one way of obtaining them.

By making it necessary for people to get degrees to get all the qualifications you mention in your post Whitewave many people are being excluded from careers they could excel in.

While I agree that pharmacy is probably a degree only subject. I think there should be a way of someone obtaining environmental science qualifications without going to university, through a longer more incremental training system, that ends up with them getting a degree level qualification.

Judy54

Not everyone is academic and university life is not necessarily for them. There should be more encouragement for Apprenticeships. As well as Doctors, Nurses and Solicitors we will always need skilled Carpenters, Electricians, Plumbers etc. My Nephew (not academic) became an Apprentice Motor Mechanic and absolutely loves his job. There is room for everyone and no one has a right to look down on or belittle somewhat because they feel their education and work style choices are not as good as theirs.

Much nurse training is via apprenticeships ...you are seconded by a trust and come out with a degree....or a masters ....this works well as your training is paid for and you get a salary whilst training....I wasxworking with a student health visitor today who told me she was on an apprenticeship and will qualify with a Post Grad diploma and if she doesn't get a job as a HV , will be able to return to her district nurse role ....so its a win win post for her

The only thing that came from my Masters degree was the ability of say: I have Masters degree. It sounds so nice. Got me nowhere though.

The changing content of some work means a degree-level education in a specialist subject is needed, in some other areas less so. But the arbitrary target if 50% university entry was a mistake leading to an overqualified population and less sub-degree training in useful trades hence our dependence on Polish plumbers, etc. Brexit killed that. But it's clear we need more immigration to counter an ageing population, especially in the skilled trades otherwise house building and much else will be at risk. There's a good case for free movement with the EU.

I worked in a shipping office for a few years. One of the Captains with whom I was friendly told me I was wasting my time working in the office and persuaded me to go to uni which I did eventually. My dissertation was Mercantile Marine of the city of my employment. A degree didn't do me much good but education is never wasted.