The perilous path of scary qualifications.

 

Anthony Burgess

The English author and journalist, George Orwell, seemed to think that in England, the intellectual and the educated, were treated with a degree of suspicion. I think Orwell was probably right.

 The Manchester author, Anthony Burgess, recalled how on one occasion, when he was in the British Army, he'd been detailed to clean the toilets at New Battle Abbey. As he was doing so, a general and his staff stopped to look at him. The general asked Burgess what work he'd done in civilian life. Private Burgess replied that he'd just graduated from Manchester University with a degree in English literature. The general said that he was pleased to see him doing something useful for once in his life - cleaning out the bogs.  Burgess says that the army top brass saw the educated British soldier as a potential barrack room lawyer. He joined the Education Corps and said that he'd spent most of his time writing letters for illiterate British soldiers and reading their wives replies to them. One wife, had written to tell her husband (Bert), that since he'd been called up, his stick of shaving soap had been like a proper husband to her.

 A country like Britain, is run a bit like Dad's Army and being highly qualified, can often act as a barrier to getting a job. I've known highly qualified people who have spent years on the dole after undertaking a three-year university course in para-proletarian studies and Rococo Marxism. Many employers often consider them over qualified for the work on offer or think that they won't stick with the job. I've also been told that some employers see educated people as far too pushy, confident and demanding, which makes them wary of employing them.

 I know of one man, who was advised by his DWP Jobcentre advisor in Ashton-under-Lyne, not to disclose that he had a university degree on his job applications, because it might be scaring employers off. Scary qualifications! He refused to do so, and gave an interview to the press. The story finished up in the Tameside Advertiser, the Manchester Evening News and the Daily Mail. This was at a time when the New Labour Prime Minister, Tony Blair, was banging on about "education, education, education."

 Another man told me that he'd been placed on a government (one size fits all) back to work training course for the unemployed and he'd been told by a member of staff, that they found it easier to get half-wits and imbeciles back into work than people with university degrees.

 I remember being on one course (Labour's New Deal for the Unemployed), when I heard a member of staff ask an unemployed actor, "Dave, how do you spell the word stadium." One of his jobs was to check people's job applications for spelling and grammatical errors even though he couldn't spell himself. Another member of staff, told us, "Always smile when you phone an employer because they know when you're not smiling." Clever stuff.

 It seemed to me that it was the half-wits and imbeciles that were running these courses for Tony Blair's New Labour Government.