Law, Social Care , McDonalds and Brussels

Usual running around but three big things in last two weeks which are the result of some pretty hard graft over the last year or so.

We launched the regulatory qualifications for Paralegals with the Scottish Paralegal Association and The Law Society for Scotland. This is a really significant development for Paralegals across Scotland and will lead to more formal recognition from the Law Society. Some coverage in Legal Press and the press.

We launched the Practice Learning Qualification for Social Workers and those working in Social Care with Andy Kerr Minister for Health .

Both these developments involve SQA qualifications forming part of the licence to practice as is the case in many other vocational areas.

On Friday I did a whistle stop visit to Brussels to speak to the Belgian equivalent of our job centres. In Belgium they are responsible for the training of job seekers as well as matching them to job opportunities. They are interested in the model we have adopted around the Microsoft Digital Literacy curriculum materials . We have wrapped them in three SQA units at SCQF 3 to boost IT , Literacy and Numeracy Skills. http://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/27604.html

I am delighted to say this has been a big success. We were first country in world to get access to these materials mainly thanks to the fact the the Microsoft Government Leaders Forum was held in Edinburgh at the same time as this curriculum was being launched.

It was interesting to hear what the Belgians thought about the recent UK announcements about giving recognition to McDonalds' training and qualifications. It reinforced to me how far our thinking is advanced in Scotland around the SCQF and vocational competencies.

The press coverage of this and the level of ignorance exposed by the press is almost unbelievable. There was a lot of pap in the UK press but some closer to home too

It used to be the case that to own a McDonalds Franchise you had to go to the McDonald’s University and complete the equivalent of an MBA. There was much talk ten years or so ago about the rise of the corporate universities as Motorola and many others customised their own masters programmes. Mike Haggerty's comments in these articles are spot on we have been doing work like this giving recognition for high level vocational training in Scotland for many years.

The prejudice is palpable though. – I wonder if learners in schools will learn that there is a paralegal route to law, that there are numerous routes other than the degree route into Social Work , Accountancy and many other professions and vocations or when they’ll find the Digital Literacy materials or tell pupils heaven forefend that they’ll learn a lot about teamwork and a range of other skills by working in McDonalds or taking equivalent employment. A lot of this ties into some postings on John Connel's Blog on the purpose and relevance of schools.