International   

McDonald’s now to award British school qualifications

LONDON: Can the hot fat fryer rival the Bunsen burner?

The British government is giving McDonald’s — along with a rail company and an airline — the power to award the equivalent of advanced high-school qualifications as part of a plan announced on Monday to improve young people’s skills.

McDonald’s, which has more than 1,000 outlets across Britain, will train employees for a qualification in “basic staff management,” giving them the financial and practical skills to run a restaurant.

Network Rail, which owns and operates Britain’s rail infrastructure, will develop courses in track engineering, while low-cost airline Flybe will run courses in areas like aircraft engineering and cabin crew training.

Business leaders are supportive of the new programmes, which mark the first time commercial companies have been allowed to award nationally recognised qualifications based on their own workplace training plans. Critics, however, complain that the diplomas are not sufficiently academically rigorous.

The courses will be the equivalent of a GCSE, the standard exam taken at 16 years old in England and Wales, an Advanced Level, the higher exam taken at 18, or, in Flybe’s case, a university level degree.

They raise the prospect that staff could take a course at McDonald’s and then go on to technical college or university.

“It is right that we recognise and accredit employers that have shown a commitment to training and developing their staff,” said Skills Minister John Denham. “This is an important step toward ending the old divisions between company training schemes and national qualifications, something that will benefit employees, employers and the country as a whole.”

David Fairhurst, a McDonald’s senior vice-president, said the move was “an important and exciting step” for the company. “We want to ensure that our approach to recruitment, training, and development continues to create real opportunities for social mobility,” he said.

The McDonald’s training will include courses on finance, hygiene and human resources. Network Rail said it hopes that all 33,000 members of its staff will eventually take its courses on safety and management.

However, the University and College Union said it was concerned that the qualifications are too narrow and too specific to one organisation. — AP

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Pro-Thaksin leader is PM
A chance meeting: Pakistan
Pakistan elections will be free and fair, says President Musharraf
Efforts on to check Gaza crossings
Thousands affected as snow pounds China
37 Tigers killed: Colombo
5 U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq
Iran receives Russian fuel
Researchers seek testing alternatives
Companies to award grades
Israel seeks the Beatles
McDonald’s now to award British school qualifications

Copyright © 2008, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu