The Daily Telegraph website reported on Monday the story that McDonald’s is to be empowered to issue A-levels

Which is, of course, nonsense. What they will be issuing is a vocational qualification roughly equivalent to an NVQ, as I understand it. A situation not entirely unlike an apprenticeship.

Guess which schools will be putting up the candidates for McA-levels?

None of them? This is McDonalds’ in house training for shift managers, but audited and given some sort of recognition outside of that organisation.

“polytechnic stigma”?

Stangely, as an ex polytechnic pupil, I’ve never been made to feel in anyway inferior.

Well, not until you wrote that.

I can’t work out whether this post is about snobbishness or is just inherently snobbish itself.

I’m just guessing but I doubt that the Telegraph writer who came up with that headline had a sneer on his face. I bet he was smiling and possibly laughing at his own joke. Lighten up!

Also, I don’t think your analysis that genuine sneering at pupils at the former polytechnics reflects a class hatred stands up.

As many studies have confirmed recently, most of the increase in university attendance has been among the middle class; most of the pupils at former polytechnics are middle class. Beyond that, most people in the middle class have children or siblings – people definitely in the same ‘class’ who have been to former polytechnics – I know I do. Arrogant sniping at former polys, which I agree is distasteful, is just common, garden rudeness – there is no reason to bring class into it.

Isn’t the purpose of the McQualification that it is for restaurant managers? Whether you love Maccy D’s or not, the qualification will stand and fall in the industry on its own merits – if it’s a good qualification, then it will get respect for people who have done it and are looking for other restaurant management jobs. On the other hand, if it’s anything like the “Microsoft Certified Software Engineer” qualification then it will be roundly derided.

I actually expect that MacDonalds will do a pretty good job of teaching and qualifying its staff to be restaurant managers, because good management is quite hard, and yet key to its own business success.