One of the options include learning in your own time.

Training is a very important matter, and the training should be taken this seriously, but totally towards doing the job, not with the aim of getting a degree, or expecting recruits to have one.

With regards to dealing with online crime, most officers will not be doing that, and those that do, which could involve civilian investigators, should be trained for that.

Specialist training has always been there, with varying levels of success, and that is the way to do it. Requiring every officer to have a degree is unnecessary. Understanding the law and procedures is vital, especially at street level policing, and being able to deal with people from every walk of life is a vital skill, and not one that can be taught in a classroom.

Core policing levels are way too low for forces to cope with what is thrown at them, and this is a massive cause of the many problems there are. Maintaining those low levels, and putting the understaffed officers under the pressure they are under will not be resolved by them having degrees.

The kind of stuff most officers are dealing with on a daily basis doesn't need a degree. Those who keep on doing these reviews, and coming up with never ending changes need to talk to those on shift work, and actually observe what they have to do.

I don't think it has helped nursing at all. Nurses used to be friendly and helpful. Now they are cold and distant, and feel they are above many of their patients.

Why is it better that people now have to spend time and money getting a degree to get a job that they once could enter as a school leaver? Who does this benefit? It is wrong IMO. My mum was a nurse and she was not at all complementary of the current generation of nurses, snobs who are loath to get their hands dirty is one of the more savoury things she had to say about them.

All brains and no common sense.
Will they go around tearing down statues they don't approve off.?

when could you enter nursing as a school leaver?

must have been a very long time ago, i wanted to train as a nurse when i left school in the seventies but you had to wait until you were 18.

"More degree educated nurses - more positive patient outcomes. The research is out there"

Would love to see your evidence or link for this assertion
The only improvement in nursing is from the arrival of foreign nurses who are prepared to get their hands dirty
You are defending the indefensible

Routine in the 60s, and boy oh boy they produced wonderful nurses

so a long, long time before they even thought about nursing degrees.

we have a lot of wonderful nurses now.

i was in and out of hospital as a child and there were some really, really nasty and vindictive pieces of work in the profession then.

Yes. My aunt started her training when she was 16. She was a wonderful nurse. She tells the best stories about it!

My mum left school at 16 (may have been 15 actually) and went to nursing school to become a nurse. She learnt on the job, not in a classroom. This was in the 1950s.

G-G-Granville get your head out of that state registered nurse

You cannot compare nurses or nursing of the 60s to nurses or nursing of today as the rolls that nurses do today is totally different to the 60s

You cant generalise like that. In every generation there will be good and bad.

However, I dont see the need for degrees in jobs like policing and nursing. It gets rid of a huge number of potential candidates before we start, and that means potentially people who would be excellent at the job without a degree.

Monkey Moo has stated earlier that he has two degrees, but learned far more in his first two years of actually doing the job than he ever did doing his degrees.

These are not jobs that require such a qualification. It should be about selecting the right type of person, and training them to do the job they joined up to do.

i do see the need for that, they are carrying out medical procedures, making medical assessments and dispensing drugs.

Nurses have always carried out medical procedures and dispensed drugs. Why did they not use to need degrees but now do? What can they learn in a classroom that they can't learn on a hospital ward?

nursing has changed enormously in the last 50 years, there is much more clinical work involved.

Does a degree mean they will get it right in relation to nursing?

My comments probably apply more to policing though.

well i don`t know about you but if someone is giving me medication, for example, i`d like them to know what they are doing, it`s very easy to get them wrong [it`s happened to me before].

i certainly am a fan of more education for medical staff, not less.

i do agree about the policing, it`s a different animal to nursing, less technical.

I would hope hope they would be trained to the level required to do their job, but does a degree mean that happens?

Training and educational qualifications dont mean the same thing.

Absolutely. Being trained to do their job is vital. Having to have a degree to do the job not so much.

On the job training should be provided at a level necessary for them to carry out all they need to do (with appopriate exams).

It may put off potentially brilliant police officers. It's not thje sort of job you can learn in a classroom.

no, you really DO need to have the formal qualifications and the education to dispense medication, in particular, in my opinion, training is not enough.

I'd doubt that there is a qualification that would allow someone to just enter as a police officer.

When you need to be able at one moment to chase down an armed robber then go and deal with a burglary and perhaps tell someone their partners died in a car crash and then have to deal with something like a missing kid who has medical conditions and thus being first on scene have to provide medical attention...my uncle who was a copper used to tell us stories in the 80/90's of the stuff he had to deal with before he became a detective and it wasn't fun, one i do remember was that at the local pit one guy had decided to end it and throw himself down the shaft and he and some guy from the pit had to go down and collect all the bits of the guy as he bounced down the pit

I know I joke about the police but I wouldn't be without them.

From the royal college of policing


Or the other alternative is to skip going to uni and get the degree by learning on the job with an apprenticeship.

I know someone who was a decorated DCI (still a copper but changed his position through choice).

One of the very first things he had to do on the job was cut down a suicide who had been hanging in his home for days.

Not sure how a degree in Media Studies would have helped in that situation.

It's an incredibly tough job.

Street smarts and experience are far more important than meaningless qualifications.

Advisable to have been on a Manual Handling Course though. http://www.workplacesafetyadvice.co....echniques.html

I think you have hit the nail on the head there. You get a degree for turning up these days. When I was young, young men only joined the police if they couldn't get any other job and they were tall enough. Most of them were as thick as two short planks, hence the term 'plod'.