‘Should we be all snotty about the news that McDonald’s will have the power to award its own A-levels?’

The Independent, by John Walsh, Tuesday, 29th January 2008

It's a little old fashioned these days to brag about where you got your degree. Surely it doesn't matter, as long as you picked up one years ago without being busted for drugs along the way? And we have now, surely, got over that snobbery that once made us stiffen with annoyance on hearing the words, "I'm at Oxford University," and seethe in reply, "You mean Oxford Poly. It's a polytechnic. It's not a real university."

We no longer would dream of saying, "I got rather a good Degree at Cambridge, actually". It's quite rare to see someone addressed, on an envelope, as "Mr Norman Ordinary, MA (Manchester), PhD (Leeds)" any more.

We don't bother much with honorifics , and really, who the hell really cares where it was you studied for your GCSEs and A-levels , provided you managed to acquire a few?

So should we be all snotty and pooh-poohing about the news that the people who run McDonald's have been given the power to award their own A-level and degree equivalents? The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority yesterday announced it was giving the burger giant – and the budget airline Flybe and Network Rail – the status of "awarding body ", able to give out certificates in "shift management " and "airline training" and "track engineering".

Disobliging sceptics are saying that, if the scheme goes through, nobody outside McDonald's, or Flybe or Network Rail, will take their graduates seriously, or believe their degrees are valid in the open marketplace. Of course, horrible academics on high tables across the nation might raise an eyebrow on hearing of your PhD in "Sleeper Replacement" (Network Rail).
If you can get a kid interested in applying his mind for two years at Flybe and getting top grades in studying "Advanced No-Frills Philosophy : "No Food, No Drink, No Movies, No Fun", then where's the harm? An A-level is, when all's said and done, an A-level.

I hope the scheme encourages other companies to ignore the claim that they're "devaluing academic qualifications ," and join this bold initiative. I look forward to the degree syllabus from Argos , which will surely include a BSc in "Making Refund Policies Incomprehensible". I'm sure the enterprising Primark chain wouldn't pass up the chance of educating the masses, by offering an A-level in "Pricing Strategies for Completely Worthless Garments " …

So it's a ringing goodbye to the old orthodoxy, when qualifications were available only from state-funded colleges and universities.
The Government's John Denham, universities minister, hopes to roll out similar schemes all over the UK.
I think we'll all look forward to the first postgraduate student of "Bottomless Credit Management" from the new University of Northern Rock...

(441 words)
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VOCABULARY

Snotty: Arrogant, fier
Brag: crâner
To pick up: (familier) obtenir
To get busted: (familier) se faire choper
Snobbery: fanfaronnade, snobisme
To stiffen with annoyance: s'agaçer
To seethe: bouillir
MA: Master of Arts, équivalent de la Maîtrise
Phd: équivalent du Doctorat
Honorifics: un titre honorifique
GCSE and A-Levels: équivalent du Brevet et du Baccalauréat
Provided: (ici) pourvu que…
Pooh-poohing: ricaner
Awarding body: comité chargé d'examens scolaires nationaux
Shift management: gestion d'équipe
Advanced No-Frills Philosophy: Philosophie sans chichis avancée
Devaluing academic qualifications: qui dévaluent les qualifications universitaires
Degree syllabus: cursus de licence ou de maîtrise (selon les matières)
Argos: catalogue d'achats en ligne
BSc: Bachelor of Science (deug de Science)
Refund Policies: politiques de remboursement
Primark: chaîne de vêtements irlandaise
Pricing Strategies for Completely Worthless Garments: stratégie de prix pour des vêtements qui ne valent rien
Bottomless Credit Management: Management de Crédits sans fonds
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Les questions servent d'orientation dans votre commentaire. Vous n'êtes pas contraints d'y répondre.

- Present what type of text this is, its date and author.
- Sum up the text in your own words and give your opinion about the contents.
- How far can / should education go?
- Is it important for you and your family to have a university degree in a well known university?
- What do you think about the fact that companies like McDonalds (or other similar companies) can hand out A-Level diplomas? What are the advantages or disadvantages of such a system?