In article , Kay Easton
wrote:

In article , Stan The Man
writes

Probably not. Perhaps one reason for our declining education standards
is that too many teachers teach without having achieved their degree
and teachers' training qualifications.

Where are you talking about? Not UK, surely?

Yes, UK. Where examination pass grades are _much_ easier to get than
they were when I was at school -- the Government's answer to poorer
teaching and diminished funding.

Firstly, when I was young, teachers were not required to have a degree,
and in practice only grammar schools had graduate teachers - primary and
secondary modern school teachers had only their teacher training
qualifications. The independent sector did not always require teacher
training qualifications.

Now, all state school teachers are graduates - I don't know about the
independent sector.

My father was a state school teacher for 40 years until 1997. He was
avery learned man but but some of his colleagues did not have degrees.
Where does your information come from?

Secondly, in what way are standards declining? My children are learning
things that I didn't learn till much later in life.

Maybe they do learn things about modern life that I wasn't taught. But
they learn less of English and mathematics than in my day. I have often
been shocked to see the uncorrected errors in my children's homework
after marking. Punctuation, grammar, mental arithmetic and more are way
too far down the list of teaching priorities nowadays.

Without these diplomas and certificates,
we may have no reliable way to whittle 1000 job applicants down to a
manageable shortlist.

Of course, unless the diplomas and certificates are relevant to the post
in question, even diplomas etc don't provide a *reliable* way - eg
requiring a degree for a job which is intellectually mundane but
requires good people skills may mean you find yourself interviewing a
group of highly intellectual nerds, while all the good communicators
have been sifted out ;-)

Anyone who interviews the wrong people for a job vacancy deserves
whatever they get.

Simon