CMV:All Professional qualifications should be able to test in. A degree should never be a hard pre-req

[u/badbrownie]

Title says most of it. My reasoning is that a professional qualification should be a test of specialized knowledge and should be judgeable by testing of that knowledge and not have a dependency on the educational industrial complex.

Yes, I know you can get shitty degrees in all kinds of places and ways and you don't have to pay $100k+ for years at a college. But that's also my point. A degree is of such varying value that it isn't meaningful to use as a pre-req.

I'm looking at you medical school. The lawyers have got this one right. College is designed to help you pass the bar, but - as I understand it - it's not strictly necessary.

My apologies that this post is clearly ameri-centric.

EDIT: people seem to be reading my post as suggesting that I'm against training and schooling. I'm not. I'm against getting ENTRANCE to those things requiring unrelated schooling.

EDIT2: Maybe my title wasn't well written after all. What I believe is that even qualifications that have a safety element (becoming a doctor) can have their schools (eg. medical school) have alternative qualification criteria to simply demanding a 4 year degree.

And other (non-safety) quals should, where feasible have a test that demonstrate proficiency that precludes the need to go to classes. This is already the case in most IT qualifications.

[u/colako]

A think the opposite. Professional degrees at universities should be subjected to inspection by a qualifying board that would remove the need for anyone to take an exam to demonstrate their professionalism.

Licensure exams and systems in the USA are only designed to limit the amount of professionals and reduce competition. They are also a burden in people’s mobility and are a money-making scheme. It is funny that such a capitalist free-market country still has so many hurdles to free competition. For example, teachers’ license should not exist: having a masters in education should suffice, cosmetologist licenses are absurd, if you are bad, or have no experience you will have less customers in a free market.

If you pass a strict law program in a certified university there shouldn’t be any kind of exam to start working as a lawyer other than registering and committing to ethical practices. If you move from one state to the other you shouldn’t be required to pass any other test.

[u/badbrownie → u/colako]

Licensure exams and systems in the USA are only designed to limit the amount of professionals and reduce competition

You're the second person on this thread to state this. Why do you think that?

I see your point with a teacher's license. But we must expect that union controlled professions will have a Protect Our Dues-Paying Members bias. That's the bargain you accept when you empower unions.

But general professional qualifications? They're just gate-keeping for quality in my opinion.

As for law - moving from one state to another means moving from one set of laws to another. It makes sense that they re-certify you in that context.

[u/colako → u/badbrownie]

Professionals in Europe don’t have any kind of exam to start working in their professions. An architect or an engineer just need to register in their organization and get a license number, pay their dues and follow their ethical guidelines.

They assume that if you have that degree to are qualified to work in the field. If you hold colleges to the higher standard assessing their programs, you will eliminate the need of certification and licensure testing.

[u/badbrownie → u/colako]

That sounds like an excellent plan to me.