Uproar in UK Over Approval Of McDonald's Qualifications
Transferable skills they may be but the awarding body, McDonald's, is facing uproar over their own qualifications. British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, announced on Monday that the fast food chain's training program would be accredited and skills qualifications considered acceptable on a par with certain academic achievements. An immediate uproar, which relates to parity between vocational and academic standards, broke out across the media.
Dan Taubman, a senior official at the University and College Union, expressed concern in The Guardian because "a McQualification won't be a more rounded qualification to help a young person leave a dead-end job...If the content isn't good enough then it won't be a portable qualification to help people progress in their lives."
The general secretary of the University and College Union, Sally Hunt, said, "We fully understand the benefits of people being able to transfer in-house accredited training to the next level. However, we would have concerns about qualifications that are very narrow and specific to one organization, like McDonald's."
Mr. Prime Minister Brown assured GMTV that standards would not fall. "It is going to be a tough course, but once you have got a qualification in management you can probably go anywhere."
John Denham, the UK secretary of state for innovation, universities and skill, said the move was an important step towards ending 'old divisions' between company training schemes and national qualifications, "something that will benefit employees, employers and the country as a whole."
Meanwhile, a spokesman from the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), which oversees examinations, told the BBC, "The Qualifications Credit Framework is a new framework that allows nationally recognized courses to be broken down into units. It is componentized so if a learner drops out of a course or can't manage to complete they can take those units with them."
QCA's chief executive, Ken Boston, added, "This announcement gives official recognition to employers' commitment to training."
McDonald's will start piloting their basic shifts manager course this month. Speaking to BBC News, David Fairhurst, the vice president for people at McDonald's UK, explained that the accreditation was a natural extension of the qualifications already offered. "Our employees tell us they want the chance to do more formal learning and we're responding to that."
The pilot will train students in everything they need to run a McDonald's outlet, from marketing to human resources and customer service skills.
Discussion questions: What do you think of a McDonald's training course being used as a source for academic credit? Do you think there's merit in a similar system of accreditation in the States that would recognize business training as on par with academic study?