Why can't we have a simpler system of educational qualification?

Box ticking with qualifications is evil!

Now in order to avoid any suggestion of my being some form of elitist, I'm going to put this out there immediately. I left school at 15 years old thinking I'd end up with no qualifications. 

Yes that's right, I'm dim, I'm stupid and it seems I possess the intellectual capacity of an amoeba. And a particularly daft one at that.

But wait, this is odd and I just can't quite explain it. It seems I can read. It's perhaps the case, although you may disagree, that I can write a reasonably well crafted argument and it's even possible that I may be able to conduct some research and as a result come up with a sensible, cohesive argument on any given subject without being told what to believe by someone with a greater intellect than my own. So you see now I'm confused.

Spewing from every orifice

The educational system we have today is based on achieving recognised qualifications at varying levels from high school, through college or university and I'd argue that it provides our society with an implication or suggestion. 

That is, that if you haven't acquired qualifications at each of the educational levels you're somehow a lesser individual than someone who has. Indeed it's often the case one might be viewed as less intelligent and certainly as someone who shouldn't be provided with the same opportunity as opposed to an individual with certificates spewing from every orifice. 

This labeling  of people based on an academic system that has been proven time after time to fail our children fills me with such irritation and rage that I could be employed in a vineyard as a world record breaking grape stomper! 

I find it utterly disgusting that as a society we can put two people side by side and in the first instance judge these two completely different human beings with potentially vastly differing life experiences, simply on the basis of who has a piece of paper saying they passed an exam and who doesn't. 

Someone so bereft of intellect

You see in my own career I have been stymied several times in application for jobs that I wanted when the recruiter, who in most larger companies is either an HR administrator and as a result someone so bereft of intellect and the ability for independent thought that in order to identify suitable applicants for a role they have to rely on tick box forms handed to them by real people, or heaven forbid, the company might have secured the services of a 'recruitment consultant'. 

Now in my view recruitment consultants and their entire industry are the very image of modern corporate evil. 

People and I use the term loosely, people whose role is to sell people! It's so Orwellian as to be sick-makingly dreadful and to deal with these twats makes my blood boil! 

Their role it would seem, is entirely and absolutely needless and exists purely as a result of lazy and ineffective manager employees or business people who can't be arsed finding the right person for their business themselves. 

The result is they provide a salesperson who describes themselves as a 'recruitment consultant' and ironically likely also 'a professional', with a list of attributes they think they want and ask that recruitment consultant to provide them with a selection of suitable applicants.  

Salesperson first and foremost

The trouble is, and this is both where I have fallen foul of these idiots and in my view where this industry has been tainted, is that the business owner who looks to recruit might very well suggest that they want someone with a degree in business. 

Now as a result of the recruitment consultant's role as a salesperson first and foremost and their desperate need to gain a commission, no-one who absolutely doesn't tick the boxes as described by their client will be passed forward as a candidate for interview. 

No independent thought, no advice, no 'well here's an option'.

The result is that I, someone who doesn't possess a degree in business but has twenty successful years in business operations under my belt would be weeded out of the mix as my CV wouldn't have ticked the appropriate boxes. 

Punching dwarves in the face

Now I'm very conscious there's a danger here I'm coming across as someone with a chip on my shoulder the size of Manhattan and that I may be a horrid little man who likes to punch dwarves in the face. Nothing could be further from the truth. 

You see I've moved on these days, hopefully permanently from the world of working for others and am a chap who own his own business. As a result I'm quite happy with my lot. 

Additionally I'm a fan of methods of recognition. I'm absolutely all for encouraging those who are capable of academic study to continue to attempt to decipher a method of calculating the exact mass of my voluminous bottom. 

Indeed as a business person I'm all for the concept of ensuring one recruits the right individual for any given role. 

In looking for a vascular surgeon for example, you wouldn't want me. Certainly not, I wouldn't know a 'vascule' if it slapped me impolitely in the face. 

If you're Iran's leading Ayatollah and are looking for a nuclear physicist to complete your delicate and highly under the counter nuclear weapons program, you'd want to ensure you found someone skilled and indeed qualified to complete the task in-hand. 

It'd be absolutely no use whatsoever for example, to ask Ted Bovis of Hi-di-hi fame to complete the rocket trajectory calculations for NASA's upcoming trip to Mars. No, as much as he'd do a cracking Franky Valli song and dance routine that would entertain the masses most majestically, he be utterly shit with a solid rocket booster I'm sure. 

Roll over Beethoven

Equally though, and here's the rub, the same is true the other way around. 

Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb changed the world in 1945. Isaac Newton ended up with a sore head from an apple falling from his tree and in turn developed our modern understanding of gravitational force. 

But could either of them have released 'Roll over Beethoven' in 1956, or 'Johnny B Goode' in 1958. Those two songs, among others, changed music forever and have been credited as being the birth of rock and roll. 

Oppenheimer and Newton couldn't have done that. But Chuck Berry did and he didn't have a qualification to his name. 

You see I'd argue, and I think you'd agree, that we absolutely need both in our society. We need Berry in our world just as much as Newton. 

But do think you'd consider them, stood side by side in a room, as equally qualified. I'll bet you wouldn't.

The problem, I'd suggest, is our system of qualification. 

As a solution I'm going to suggest that we base everything, like at primary school, on Gold Stars! No I'm not kidding. 

From and academic perspective, for completing one's high school first level qualifications, whatever they're called these days, you'd get one Gold Star. For completing your second level, another star. For completing a university or college diploma another star, for honours another, masters another and so on. 

So if you're the schooly, academiccy type of person who got all their school qualifications, went through uni and ended up continuing to progress through your written education you could end up with a PHD and being a 8-10 Gold Star person. 

Equally and for the non academic person I suggest stars are awarded based on certain levels of achievement. 

As a performer for example you'd be awarded a Gold Star for having played to ten 1000 seat audiences during any one show to a maximum of 10 Gold Stars. This would mean that by the time an individual has collected the full 10 stars they would have played to one hundred 1000 seat audiences and could be rightly described as having mastered their art and be a 10 Gold Star performer. 

Special recognition would be given for specific achievements 

Additionally those like me, who left school with little academic qualification could acquire recognition and stars based on achievements in the workplace.

On successful completion of the first two years of employment for example you'd be awarded one gold star, on five years another at 10 years another. Special recognition would be given for specific achievements. 

A new product or innovative and commercially effective technique for example could be awarded additional stars.

This would again mean that by the time an individual has striven to succeed, completed 20 years in the workforce and been committed to the extent of having developed new methods or products, this person could also be said to be at the top of their game. 

Moreover in my system, they'd be recognised to the same extent as someone who had worked equally hard in their academic field. 

Actually speak to people

So we're back to the bloody bastard recruitment consultant who now, as opposed to being told that they are to find someone who simply must have an honours degree in hen fighting, has been asked by his client to supply him with 7-8 Gold Star people. 

This is now fabulous because the recruitment consultant may very well be met with twenty five 7-8 Gold Star people but with experiences in various fields. 

This means you see, a selection process can no longer be simply about box ticking and as a result selecting only those who highlight a masters degree in hen fighting when in all reality they haven't touched a hen, or a fight in quite some time. 

In being forced to actually read a person's CV, it may become apparent that someone else possesses 20 years experience in managing hen fights, but doesn't necessarily have a degree. Now this latter person may not end up being the best person for the job but at the very least, in my world they'd be given equal opportunity. 

So you see the process now has to become about people, not forms.

As someone who is all about people and their life experiences I think this is a fabulous plan. 

The idea that recruitment becomes about speaking to people and asking of their lives. I know, shocking, eh, actually speaking to people and making sensible thought provoking decisions based on individuals and their lives as a whole, not simply whether or not someone was handed piece of paper 20 years ago that said they could add up. 

So yes, let's go back to primary school and make our new world's system of qualifications all about Gold Stars. I tell you, it's the way of the future!

Thanks for reading and please feel free to read my previous posts, or come back for more next week.