WE didn't go in for this A-level lark when I was a lad. Old-fashioned newspaper editors would expect any decent journalist to go straight into the job at 15 or 16 as tea-boy or postroom assistant.

And what a jolly good policy that was. Recruits learnt in the school of hard knocks, rather than being cossetted in a classroom. We got A-levels in life experience rather than in exams which can be learnt parrot fashion.

Over the years, I've met a great many A-level students and graduates incapable of stringing a sentence together. Just because they've learnt the date of the Battle of Hastings, it doesn't give them the right, or indeed the knowledge, to walk into a decent job.

I'm not against A-levels and degrees; it's too much emphasis is put on them. There are too few occupational qualifications, which are much handier.

Take teaching, for example. Any old Joe with a degree and a maths and English GCSE to his/her name can apply for a one-year teacher training course and a hefty Government grant.

The course mainly consists of being seconded to a few schools and passing a few relatively simple exams. And then you're let out into the world as a teacher, educating our young people.

There's no apparent emphasis on subjects such as psychology, which I thought would have been vital in dealing with children's behaviour.

I don't reckon that a 2:2 in religious studies and a year of work experience gives you the right to stand up in a class and preach to impressionable kids.

Teacher training should merit a proper three-year degree course in its own right. But, sadly, the crisis in recruitment makes this an impossibility.

This is another factor likely to lower educational standards, and which devalues exams. I don't wish to disappoint any bright young things celebrating exam successes. They deserve to bask in their moment of glory.

But what they have to realise is there's still a huge road ahead of them in life. Good grades alone don't earn them the right to an easy life, which too many of them expect.

I hope they enjoy their celebrations today, because many may be in for a rude awakening when they finally step out into the real world.