The real value of an individual's qualifications is ultimately judged by prospective employers - on a national scale, this can be assessed according to the number of foreign workers a country imports to work in a particular area, and which other countries those imported workers tend to come from. Making exams easier in order to have more people pass them serves only tohem serves only to devalue the qualifications awarded for passing. Similarly, relaxing the entrance requirements of further education institutions such as universities merely devalues the reputations of the universities themselves.

One thing which has always distressed me about the education system in the UK, and most particularly in England [2], is the tendency to try and separate students into Arts and Science disciplines, suggesting that the two are incompatible, that they require different types of intelligence. This has left quite a gap in the labour market, where interdisciplinary academics are often useful, and where a frequent problem cited by employers is a lack of general knowledge among staff. I really don't agree that people are capable only of either Arts or sciences - I think, rather, that there are people who learn best in the manner in which Arts subjects are normally taught, and people who learn best in the manner in which Science subjects are normally taught. I have personally taught a number of people who excelled at Maths, Computing, Physics and suchlike subjects but who had always been told (and had believed) they were incapable of learning languages. By eschewing the popular style of language courses and presenting them instead as one might present a computer language, or a mathematically based cipher, and so forth, I was able to get them to learn quickly and successfully - what had formerly bebeen obscure suddenly made sense to them. I am sure that most students could benefit from increased diversity in methods of teaching, which would not be beyond the resources of the educational system as it stands, at least not in urban areas. Simple increased awareness among educational facilitators could help a great deal, improving the chances of pupils being referred to other, more personalised educational materials which they might study in private.