Restaurant Chain Offers ‘McDiplomas’

Houston Chronicle:

Can the hot fat fryer rival the Bunsen burner?

The government is giving McDonald’s Corp. - 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 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 railroad infrastructure, will develop courses in track engineering, while low-cost airline Flybe will run courses in areas like aircraft engineering and cabin crew training.

Some business leaders are supportive of the new programs, which mark the first time commercial companies have been allowed to award nationally recognized qualifications based on their own workplace training plans.

Critics, however, complain that the diplomas are not sufficiently academically rigorous. Read on…