https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/sep/15/posh-bbc-removes-qualifications-from-cvs-of-job-applicants

The mind, she boggles.

RBS don’t consider the education of applicants for anything other than entry level, or graduate trainee roles as long as they meet min requirements (usually 4 GCSEs or equiv)

Sorry to say, unless you actually need a degree for the job (medic, teacher etc) no one cares about what you did between the age of 18 and 21 unless you’re about 25 or under.

In my industry it’s irrelevant, attitude and aptitude is paramount.

I’m not surprised by anything the BBC does, but this is a step forward for them.

I never went to uni, I never wanted to and I couldn’t be arsed. Not for one single second have I ever regretted that decision.

Well for balance, I’m glad I did. I had a great time.

In my industry, most jobs require a degree of some sort. Sometimes they specify computer science, sometimes they say ‘something technical’ and sometimes they will take any degree.

Oppression Olympics meets middle class guilt.

Just don’t say it’s political correctness gone mad or you’re a stupid Daily Mail reading, Brexit voting, xenophobic nazi racist monster.

To be fair though friend who worked for the BBC admitted jobs were taken before they were advertised. Legal requirements due to annoying licence fee payers. Never used my degree but I went when it was free and pleased to say it did open up endless possibilities I would not have taken otherwise.
It all seems a bit of a con now unless you are really aimed at a specific career that pays well.

I never went either.
EBay for ANY degree you want…
Trust me 😉

DrP

I did wonder if the real reason posh schools do ‘Pre U’ rather than A levels was so that the right people would know looking at a CV / application even with the college name removed.

Seems pretty sensible to me. For most jobs it’s attitude and experience that counts. Once the rest of society recognises that, we can reign in some of the debt that youngsters are suffering under.

it’s attitude and experience that counts.

Indeed – and a big element of experience in my work is being trained to do science during a PhD.

Indeed – and a big element of experience in my work is being trained to do science during a PhD.
[/quote]

There has to be better ways of dealing with class/social nepotism than stifling education.

So do we 😉

[Blind CVs – more examples of human remains making a basic process flawed.]

Once the rest of society recognises that, we can reign in some of the debt that youngsters are suffering under

SFA to do with rest of society IMO. That decision has to come from the individuals concerned. Again not sure how blind CVs help

[cant be arsed to open link, so I am assuming it’s about blind CVs]

we can reign in some of the debt that youngsters are suffering under

Or perhaps just not charge our future generations huge amounts at ridiculous interest rates to further themselves?

Uni all the way.
My son did a degree in knitwear design & another in some fashion related…shite.
He’s now a Performance, Resilience/Safety type gaffer with Crossrail & working on the new system/routes.

Stepson did a degree in Business & Economics, so he’s now a train driver with Freightliner & has an interview with Virgin next week.

Go uni!

I was lucky enough to get a degree when it was free. It was relevant in me getting my first job, maybe the first 2 or 3 to some extent. They were not in the same field but my degree was still very important. But thereafter it was barely relevant and degree subjects were barely relevant in those I employed except recent grads. You are what you’ve just done, so I don’t take serious issue with what they’re doing here, and eliminating these prejudices is positive, but it’s simplistic and I’m not convinced it’ll work.

Better education is more available to those with relative privilege, so this is a way to tackle that but it’s treating the symptom rather than the cause. And I’d question whether it’s even doing that very well.

I was disappointed with the introduction of tuition fees but nowhere near as disappointed as I am with interest rates at 3% over inflation. If we simply cannot provide higher education free to the user then if we subsidised the interest to below inflation and got the other terms right then I reckon a certain level of fee could at least have a very limited effect on who goes to university. As it is I think we’re going backwards fast. We need to tackle the cause, not just hide the outcome.

This ^

My first degree allowed me to do a masters which provided the niche technical skills to get me my first job.
I’m a strong advocate of life long learning and another couple of masters degrees later (1 a career break) and one part time whilst working has pushed me further forward in my career and earning ability.

I’m the first from my family to go to university and wouldn’t be where I am now (geographically, occupationally or financially) if I hadn’t.

There has to be better ways of dealing with class/social nepotism than stifling education.

there are but it involves action that those in privileged positions that rely on the cosy march prepschool-privateschool-russelgroup/oxbrige- wouldn’t like.

to be clear: I went to university and I learnt so much that can be quantified and that can’t be measured also, I’m eternally grateful for all of it

but there are systemic failures in the education system as a whole, the arts are neglected, there is lots of cash and enthusiasm for early years but it’s not well targeted, too much pointless testing in children that wastes time and money, no clear direction for non-classical education it’s universities or a disjointed mush, too many coexistent funding methods for schools that confuse parents and waste resource, and alongside all of this mess there are a small strata of private schools that are allowed to dodge all the hoops that state funded are subject to, taking the bright kids out of state schools in the disingenuous reasoning of their charitable status when the only reason they do this is to bolster their average grade (if they really were a charity and if they really were as great a learning institiution as they claim they would be taking poverty bound SEN kids and transforming their lives but they don’t)

turn all the private schools into state, halt all applications for free schools, take a scythe to the testing and league tables, build a new system for skills and the arts (kinda like the original tripartite system but give proper status to the technical and the creative). And for pete’s sake take advantage of the connected world we live in and use MOOCs and all the other myriad of online resource. And talk to business leaders of all sectors not just the few big organisations that hang around the HoP

I spent 5 years at college. It was the best time of my life. Skint but happy. I did very little work but learnt a great deal and had great fun. A lot of what I learnt may be irrelevant now but that’s not the point. It is the experience you go for, and I encourage anyone to go if they can. Just please move away from your home town/ city, or you miss the whole exposure/ forced to make new friends and meet new people thing.

Thank god for switch cashbacks though – anyone remember them in the 90s? Many a night out would not have been doable without them!

Sadly in the company I am in if you start with a PhD you have an advantage for probably 10-15 years of a BSci… it doesn’t matter the quality of your work it will probably take that amount of time for the salaries to even and the preferential treatment to stop… I think it is piss poor to not treat people based on the quality of the work they are currently doing now rather than before they joined the company

Companies like to have people with degrees so they can tell their clients they employ highly educated people. They also like to have a system where people can be senior 1, 2 or 3 so they can tell them people are highly experienced…

Seems like a very sensible and outward looking measure to me. Uni is not a guarantee of quality by any stretch. The engineer I have just hired was the only non uni qualified person I interviewed, he was clearly the best candidate; brightest, best attitude and had been in industry.

Sadly in the company I am in if you start with a PhD you have an advantage for probably 10-15 years of a BSci

And rightly so, IMO. I spend a lot of my time teaching BSc/MSc grads what to do when the textbook is no help, something that a PhD would already have taught them.

turn all the private schools into state,

How does that solve anything !

Private schools represent a v small segment of UK schools, they represent an important test case for what happens when the state can’t interfere or can only interfere less, many have global reputations allowing them to attract students from around the world and some produce excellent results. Why would anyone want to end that??

Transparency is better that opaqueness- give people al the info, then let them decide who is the best fit. My latest two hires include oxford grad and a bloke without a degree who is self taught. Both fit the required roles perfectly. That is all that matters

andykirk – Member
I spent 5 years at college. It was the best time of my life. Skint but happy. I did very little work but learnt a great deal and had great fun. A lot of what I learnt may be irrelevant now but that’s not the point. It is the experience you go for, and I encourage anyone to go if they can. Just please move away from your home town/ city, or you miss the whole exposure/ forced to make new friends and meet new people thing.

Good points – but you need to add that others should not need to fund that. If the wider experience is worth it, fund it yourself itself

Well the vast majority of degrees are utterly useless

but I only have my job because I have a Ph.D so not all are useless, just most of them

Like a lot of others not having a degree now makes very little difference to my career prospects. It’s all about experience for the roles I go for.

I’d be happy going up against a new graduate any day as I’m confident I’d be a preferable candidate. The only time it may make a difference is if they couldn’t split me and another person of similar experience but who did have a degree but it’d be far more likely to come down to personality. Then I’d be ****ed because I’m a dick 😀

I did start university – did a BEd for two years and hated it. Ended up in a call centre but worked my way into a training position – ended up training someone who qualified from my course as a teacher.

I disagree that not having a degree makes no difference. For many(most) roles your CV will be junked at the first step without having a university education. IME technical roles that I would have been getting interviewed for 10 years ago, I no longer am, even though the past 10 years are the stand out area of my CV and highly relevant to the roles I am applying for. Those that do have degree educations may not see their relevance to the work they now do, but probably also do not see the effect not having it would make.

I think that uni isn’t necessary for everyone, it’s a great experience but for me it was essential for my career too.
I have no problem with taxes funding uni, it’s a benefit for those that go and the wider society.

Of course there needs to be viable alternatives, unfortunately since the gov privatised them in 2010 the national apprenticeship providers have detrriorated massively, with record numbers failing to complete their schemes, the largest provider has been rated inadequate by Ofsted.

The providers blame the governments huge cuts to funding
http://feweek.co.uk/2017/04/27/dear-robert-the-apprenticeship-allocation-will-cut-our-funding-by-over-80/

But the providers have been busy paying record dividends despites their failures.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/aug/14/learndirect-branded-inadequate-in-ofsted-report-it-tried-to-suppress

It’s just another example of those at the bottom being hit by austerity the hardest. Leaving a legacy that costs more than the savings made.

Uni all the way.
My son did a degree in knitwear design & another in some fashion related…shite.
He’s now a Performance, Resilience/Safety type gaffer with Crossrail & working on the new system/routes.

Shame he didn’t follow his dreams and get to design diamanté handbags for the glitterati but a jobs a job.

I’m not surprised by anything the BBC does, but this is a step forward for them.

I guess the issue for the Beeb is its traditionally been a very good career elevator – you can join as an admin assistant and work and train your way to producer and beyond, or into any technical role all with on the job training and development.

For most of us your qualifications are pretty irrelevant once you’ve got some work experience under your belt. It would never occur to me to put any of my qualifications on my CV, I can’t imagine anyone would care. Mind you I don’t put any of my employment history on there anymore either – no room.

But I guess for the beeb it means that the door in is at that very junior level and school qualifications are going to seem to have more impact on the profile of their workforce. But because the career progression is so good those junior roles are probably pretty hotly contested. Its a bit of a skewed reflection though as its only really a reflection of part of the BBC workforce – its only a fraction of the BBC’s output that is commissioned in-house and every production whether in-house or externally produced is mostly staffed by freelancers with BBC staff at the top (commissioning editors) and bottom (admin roles) of the production and big wedge hired in crew and services in between. Any audit isn’t going to show what the academic or social backgrounds of that part of the workforce is. The BBC has never seen my CV, they only get my invoices.

Teamhurtmore – no I do not think I need to add that. Education should be paid for by the taxpayer.