supperware.net » writings » so you want to get ahead?

Only two weeks to go until our new consignment of Freshers arrives, and with them comes an annual ritual that I remember with particular fondness. This ritual stems from an instinct that must be embedded deeply in the fabric of human consciousness.

Think back to the time when you were a Fresher. You’re talking to another Fresher, and you’ve already swapped names, asked about each other’s home towns, and compared term-time accommodation. You’ve even traded your academic subjects. After a few more platitudes and pleasantries, though, the conversation is waning dangerously, and you both realise that you may soon have to face the depressing fact that you have little in common: no friends, no interests, and no geography. The tattered remains of the conversation need to be salvaged quickly to preserve your dignity. There’s only one desperate, squalid shard of a gambit left, but it’s got to work. It’s time for the ritual. Simultaneously, in jovial voices, you ask each other: ‘How did you do in your A-levels?’

A-level results have improved again this year, so the answer’s likely to be better than it’s ever been. If you started University after 1996, then statistically you’re cleverer than I am. In fact, according to the DfES web site, fewer than 69% of my year managed to pass three or more A-levels. The Class of 96 were ignorant, and its schoolteachers inept. Fortunately, though, we were cleverer than the year above us, and the year below us did better still. The only disadvantage of this year-on-year proliferation of academic genius is that universities now find it too difficult to choose between prospective students. In confusion, they’ve even started basing their admissions policies on arbitrary whims. Oxbridge, for example, make sure that most of their students come from independent schools, and even the UniS head honchos, poor souls, have started proclaiming that 20% of new undergraduates must come from countries outside the EU.

In an attempt to make everybody’s lives easier, A-level candidates may soon be awarded two marks for each subject. One would be an ‘A’, given for being a jolly good fellow and attending the exam. The other, supplied in brackets or printed in smaller letters, would indicate the ability of each candidate to pass that exam. And in another twenty years, when the second mark has crept up and consistently reaches its maximum possible value, a third mark could be given in even smaller letters or double brackets. This solution is perfectly simple and sensible. And in common with all simple and sensible opinions, it’s complete rubbish.

This is where my idea comes in. Here’s the background story: I’ve now been doing a PhD for nearly three years. It’s a lonely occupation, and to stay sane I’ve kept myself motivated by focusing on the reason why I’m still here. It’s not because I’ll be allowed to call myself ‘Doctor Supper’: apart from the fact that I’d probably get sued by the soft drinks company with a similar name, insisting on being called ‘doctor’ is horribly pompous. It’s certainly not the employment prospects that are keeping me going, either: they’re little better for doctoral graduates than for anybody else. In fact, there’s evidence to suggest that many employers discriminate against PhD graduates, because apparently none of us can remember how to solve real problems. That leaves only one reason to study for a PhD. The hat.

You see, PhD graduates wear a special hat during the degree ceremony: a squashy, fuzzy black hat. It’s even sillier than the mortar board that everybody else gets, and it’s got a far better tassle. When I hand in my dissertation, crash through my viva, and leave this place in a blaze of anticlimax in a few months’ time, I’m going to look bloody great. Sod the future. For me, higher education is definitely about the headgear.

So here goes. Instead of attempting to boost the confidence of A-level students by encouraging vile American-style proms, holding tedious sixth-form graduation ceremonies, and awarding pass marks to any organism with a pulse, why not give pupils a single grade that reflects their exam-passing ability, and allows universities to discriminate between any two students on the grounds of academic ability? It’s obvious that a more meaningful way of celebrating the fact that everybody’s had a good try is by letting them wear daft hats. Everybody likes wearing hats. So under my new system, we’d have state-subsidised hats.

I’m talking millinery of the finest quality here. The kind that would benefit the economy by training skilled artisans, generating employment, and making Britain the envy of the hat world. The further one progresses in education, the more prestigious the hat one would get to wear. Key Stage 1 pupils would be awarded a simple plastic-and-fabric hat with a horizontal orange or blue-green sun visor: the kind that was fashionable in the 1980s, and in certain lighting conditions gives its wearer virtual David Bowie eyeshadow. Key Stage 2 students would be rewarded with neat bowler hats to wear to secondary school. Key Stage 3 pupils would be ‘upgraded’ to a homburg or a panama, available in any colour. Every GCSE passer would be presented with a ten-gallon hat with a buckle on. People who decide to pursue vocational qualifications at this point will not be left out of my scheme: rather, they will be given round helmets, modelled on the Helmet of Justice from ITV’s Knightmare. The finest privilege, though, would be reserved for those who have passed their A-levels: a pointy wizard’s hat.

In my vision of the future, graduates will be emerging into the adult world with mildly disappointing degree results, and more than fifteen thousand pounds of debt each. But it won’t matter, because they’ll all have beautiful hats to commemorate their academic efforts. If you were allowed to keep the mortar board that they give you on graduation day, wouldn’t you be a happier person, and thus a better worker? It just couldn’t fail. Far from costing the taxpayer a fortune, it would actually save the Treasury money. The NHS would no longer need to fork out on lorry-loads of Prozac and beta-blockers to sustain the country’s crumbling academic tutors. I’m certain that the moment we start giving away those hats, a new golden age will begin. The forces of higher education will be united once more under that mighty old slogan — ‘Elitism For All!’ And master craftsmen would keep walking into lamp-posts.

Published in barefacts 1080 • 10 September 2004