Pointless exams/qualifications

[ebikeerwidnes]

We were discussion school and GCSEs at home before and we wandered off onto what we had and why

Now my wife has 'O' levels - but not as good as she should have - teenager and all that
but also has 'A' levels - all grade A and B - including History and English Literature
Plus a degree in History - which tends to involve a lot of reading and writing

But when she was working for the NHS she was made to take an "Adult Literacy" exam

Also - at the time she was using computers - mostly Excel and Access - to analyse complex clinical data
and typeing complex reports in Word
and make Presentations for Senior Management in Powerpoint

and she was made to take an ECDL computer qualification - which is VERY basic


worse still

I was working at very complex level in an IT department for 20 years
basically dealing with the things that were too techy for the actual programmers

then moved on to become an IT teacher in a High School
so teaching IT to GCSe and 'A' level


but when I was temporarily unemployed after leaving that school - the unemployment advisor told me that I had to take the ECDL course or my benefits would be stopped
I commented that - never mind take the course - I was actually qualified to teach the damn thing!!
but he still insisted


anyway - any other dumb useless course you have been told to take!!!

 

[midlife]

Blimey, I’d forgotten that all nhs staff had to take ECDL, if memory serves I think mine was 2001

 

[Webbo2]

I worked in the NHS for 30 plus years and pretty sure I never did the ECDL. I might have some IT skills if I had done.

 

[ColinJ]

anyway - any other dumb useless course you have been told to take!!!

English - as a mature student at university!

I had top grades at 'O'level in English language and literature, but apparently that was not true for many of my fellow students...

There were about 25 Norwegians doing the same degree course as me at university and they too all spoke perfect English. We were told that we all had to do a remedial English language course in our first semester. A couple of the Norwegian students asked why (in their perfect English!) and were told that it wasn't actually aimed at the foreign students. It was required because too many of the British students tended to have poor English language skills... It is a bit embarrassing when overseas students speak (and write) better English than many Brits do!

 

[raleighnut]

I did the ECDL, very informative but I had a teacher who was very good...............actually explained things.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

any other dumb useless course you have been told to take!!!

My workplace has gone AI crazy - it's going to "supercharge", "transform" etc everything, so we all have to do hours of AI "training".

Naturally this means sitting at a desk watching endless repetitive videos, the only saving grace of which is that it's possible to run them at 2x speed.

Senior management then post on our internal social media about how brilliant this "training" was, and sycophants chip in underneath to laud it too.

Amongst supposed targets from this is a "30% increase in precision". Of what, is not mentioned - ironically a less precise target could hardly be imagined.

 

[Pat "5mph"]

Blimey, I’d forgotten that all nhs staff had to take ECDL,

Facilities don't.
They think we are too thick to use computers, we don't even get an NHS email address nor are we able to check our pay slips online

I worked in the NHS for 30 plus years and pretty sure I never did the ECDL. I might have some IT skills if I had done.

You already have them lol
How did find, register and post on Cycle Chat?
The ECDL syllabus is really out of date anyway, it teaches Office 95 (or there abouts)

 

[Webbo2]

Facilities don't.
They think we are too thick to use computers, we don't even get an NHS email address nor are we able to check our pay slips online

You already have them lol
How did find, register and post on Cycle Chat?
The ECDL syllabus is really out of date anyway, it teaches Office 95 (or there abouts)

I don’t think clinicians had to do either or I found a way to avoid it. I only learnt to use the tinterweb due to a senior colleague who decided I needed to be able to use it. So as a fellow outdoorsy type he signed me up to UKBouldering and UKclimbing.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

Just remembered a traing course I did when I was a teacher

The school had discovered that I had had not "training" since joining 2 years before so one of the Science teachers and I were dispatched to watch videos for a day.

One of the videos was about lesson preparation
How to set up the classroom for the next lesson and all that - which every teacher does every lesson

We were confused - so we rewound it and - both being cynical gits - timed it all

Turned out that he reckoned it took 15-20 minutes to properly set up a classroom for each lesson to do it properly
We check him out - he was a Deputy Head Teacher - so probably had 2-3 lessons a week
Rather than 6-7 a DAY for a normal full-time teacher that his videos were supposedly aimed at with exactly zero time available to do anything after one lot left and the next lot started trying to kill each other in the corridor

 

[SpokeyDokey]

Most worthless qualifications/study areas for me were foreign languages (French & German) never used either. Plus English Literature, Geography and History garnered little use.

At 18 I also decided that a degree was a waste of time (I had passed A Levels in Maths, Physics & Business Studies at a level that would secure a good degree course).

I just went and got a job. Ended up with a senior job in big box retail and then eventually MD of a legal company.

French & German was definitely a waste of time career-wise. As was A Level Physics & Maths. Business Studies was also so far away from real-life Business matters that it was amost laughable.

Better study areas at a young age would have been, networking, strategic business planning, the dynamics of human relationships in the workplace, investment planning, marketing, etc, blah, blah, blah.

Just a personal view.

 

[Drago]

I got sent on a timekeeping course. I turned up late the first two days and was asked not to come back for the third.

They wanted to send me on an Islamic awareness course. I asked the Inspector that I, as a Jewish man, would be happy to attend, just as soon as someone else was sent on a Judaism awareness course. I heard nothing more.