Diplomas are starting in many schools this September. This means that at 14 (yes 14!) kids will choose between courses like Hair and Beauty, Health and Social Care, Engineering etc. If they complete this they get the diploma - if they fail one element of it they get no qualifications at all. At least now, kids can get some GCSEs even if they do not succeeed at all subjects. The diplomas include maths and English at a basic level (to GCSE grade C-ish). There is no skills element , that they might have learned if they did an apprenticeship, so that someone with a Hair and Beauty diploma won't know how to cut hair! Heaven knows what happens if they decide at 16, say that they really want to become a reasearch chemist, or to focus on Shakespeare but are stuck in Hospitality and Catering. There are to be three very broad and vaguely academic diplomas (Science, Humanities, Languages) but that's all there is for the boffs. Diplomas, we're told, are worth 4 and a half A levels. However, almost half the universities won't accept them and instead will look to the International Baccalaureat (IB) or the Cambridge Pre-U, both of these are like a range of hard A levels plus a project, done almost exclusively by private schools. Guess who employers like big accountancy firms would recruit - someone from Eton with the IB or the one who's been squeezed into a skill- free 'vocational' diploma? Be afraid, this tragedy is approaching fast!