Teenagers will be given a crash course in preparing burgers Photo: AP  There has long been a tendency to mock things using the prefix "Mc" – you know: Mcjobs, McMansions, McCafes – to the chagrin of the burger-pedlar which maintains that its employment opportunities are as superlative as its sesame seed buns. Now there is another term for it to bristle at: the McGCSE. A new qualification will give teenagers who spend two weeks grafting at McDonalds a Level 2 BTEC in work skills, which is, incredibly, held to be the equivalent of a Grade B at GCSE.  This news raises all sorts of questions. Should students study mayonnaise in test-tubes before smearing it on a McChicken sandwich? Do you get an A* for assembling a Big Mac? How long until Starbucks A-level, with modules in milk frothing and chocolate sprinklings?  It's easy to be flippant about burger flipping, but the McGCSE shows what happens when a Government is so terrified of the word "elitism" that it tries to pretend all qualifications are equal – when it's pretty obvious that they aren't.  As someone who went to a comprehensive school, then on to read English literature at Cambridge, my experience of elitism meant being taught by some of the best, most inspiring and demanding academics in my field, who cared as much about the background of their students as they did about whether their own socks matched. That is to say, somewhere between a casual interest, and none at all.  While the snobbery of social elitism is unacceptable, academic elitism is actually a good thing – but still, too many people run scared. Witness Carl Gilleard, the chief executive of the Association of Graduate Recruiters, who argued this week that too many students are pushed into taking devalued degrees only to balk at the logical conclusion to his argument: that universities need to be "more elitist".  Of course vocational training matters, and an A-level in physics isn't for everyone, but drawing a false equivalence between academia and practical skills is like comparing apples with oranges, or pears with cheeseburgers. I spent plenty of time serving fast food as a teenager, but it was called a Saturday job not a BTEC.  Sometimes, though, the academic and the practical are inextricably linked. I refer to the beleaguered Large Hadron Collider. The world's largest particle accerator might have to shut for a year for repairs, following its earlier closure after a bird dropped a bit of bread on it. I have a vested interest in the LHC: my fiancé's parents live next to it, on the Swiss-French border, and the knowledge that it could, at any minute, suck us all into a wormhole of its own creation adds a certain frisson to Christmas lunch. His father used to work for CERN, and when he was a boy he was taken on a tour of the particle acceleration tunnel. My future father-in-law shut the door behind his family and it closed with an ominous click. They were locked in: his PhD was of no use. His wife rummaged in her bag and found a teaspoon, which she used to prise the door open. Perhaps someone could find a way to fix the LHC using canteen cutlery.  Considering, as we are, the end of the world, I suppose most people have wondered what will go through their head in their final moments. I have my answer. While skiing last week in terrible visibility, I went straight over the edge of the piste, and felt a sudden and terrifying emptiness beneath my skis. I was wearing a helmet, which would doubtlessly annoy Boris Johnson, who prefers a woolly hat. As it happened, I landed unscathed on snow, but I was haunted by the knowledge that if I hadn't, the last thing I thought about as I hurtled abyss-wards was Boris.
A new qualification that will give teenagers the equivalent of a GCSE for    working in McDonalds shows why academic elitism is no bad thing, says Ceri    Radford.