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Todays rant ..... ;-)

We have the pleasure of delivering the OCR Business Admin qualifications which cause us no end of headaches. Apart from the continual issue with OCR creating duplicate candidate numbers and hence splitting the units across them resulting in no overall certification, we have another battle with ownership of word processor software related issues.

The teaching staff, backed up to an extent by OCR, seem to think that the exams are "typing tests" (my words) and do not require the candidates to understand how to use the intricacies of the software. Two examples as illustrations:

1. The candidates are not expected to know how to open the audio files and the invigilator is expected to do this for them.
   
2. OCR require the dates in mailmerged documents to be in the UK format (dd/MM/yyyy) and not the US format (MM/dd/yyyy). However, a feature of Word 2007 is that it has changed the way it connects to the data source and now pulls through the data in the US format. There are ways for the user to change this, but as apparently that knowledge is not being tested, Exams are being expected to provide a template based solution to prevent it happening.
   

I am concerned that we are going too far to support the AB and the candidates. If the ABs want a "typing test" why do they not provide/specify the software? Equally, if the candidates are only being taught to "type", what use will they be in the real world when they are unable to use an industry standard software without significant assistance? Certainly I know that I would have reservations employing such candidates as it would be quicker for me to do the job myself!

Rant over :-)

Anyone else have these problems or have you a different solution?

Duncan