Gordon Brown today defended his Government's latest skills initiative, which would allow large employers such as McDonald's to offer takeaway diplomas and 'McDegrees'.

News of the decision to accredit the fast food giant and other testbed companies to award their own qualifications got a mixed reception from educational experts, who questioned how widely the diplomas would be recognised outside the doors of the companies in question.

But the Prime Minister said that the qualifications would make it easier for young employees to find work elsewhere. Mr Brown also denied that the scheme amounted to a dumbing-down of A Levels and GCSEs.

“If McDonald’s do it, it is not that standards are going to fall, in fact it is going to be a tough course, but once you have got a qualification in management you can probably go anywhere,” Mr Brown told GMTV.

"I think that is the important thing, companies prepared to train people up which they weren’t doing before, in the way that we want them to do, in a far greater number, so that people have the qualifications for the future.”

Officials say that McDonald's, which has more than 1,000 outlets across Britain, is to pilot a basic shift manager course, which will train staff in areas like marketing, human resources and customer service skills. The company has run its 'Hamburger University' in Chicago, which turns out more than 5,000 graduates a year, since 1961.

The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, a regulatory body which overseas the national curriculum in England and Wales and accredits qualifications, has also approved two other organisations, the first time commercial companies have been allowed to award nationally recognised qualifications.

Network Rail, which owns and operates Britain’s rail infrastructure, will develop courses in track engineering while low-cost airline Flybe will run courses in areas like aircraft engineering and cabin crew training. The courses, the first time will be the equivalent of GCSE, A Level or even degrees.

John Denham, the Skills Secretary, said: “It is right that we recognise and accredit employers that have shown a commitment to training and developing their staff. This is an important step towards ending the old divisions between company training schemes and national qualifications, something that will benefit employees, employers and the country as a whole."

In a keynote speech to business leaders in London today, Mr Brown made no specific reference to the scheme but spoke of the need to create thousands of new apprenticeships if Britain was to compete globally.

Mr Brown told an audience of employers that a “new national effort” was needed to raise the level of skills amongst workers and job seekers. He announced that the Government was aiming to increase the number of apprenticeships by 90,000 over the next five years so that 220,000 people were on such training schemes every year.

Whitehall departments will be told to create more apprenticeships and firms will be encouraged to target more girls for certain jobs, such as those in engineering and construction.

Mr Brown said that, a generation ago, a British Prime Minister faced tackling the global arms race but today his challenge was the global skills race.

He said that, of today’s six million unskilled workers, only a fraction would be able to find work in the future unless they increased their training.

The Prime Minister said the urgency of the task had been brought home to him during his recent visit to India and China, which between them are producing five million graduates a year, 150,000 computer scientists and 200,000 engineers. It is more obvious to me than ever that globalisation rules out competing on low pay.”

But Mr Brown urged trade unions not to press for higher wages for apprentices, arguing that pay rates should be lower during training.

Mr Brown also signalled a tougher regime of sanctions against the unemployed if they refused help to improve their skills. There will be new requirements on individuals to obtain the skills they need to find a job, he said.

“Every unemployed person should have a skills check to make sure that Britain raises its skills game to world-class,” Mr Brown said.

He added that the Government would announce reforms to make it easier for firms to offer apprenticeships including financial help.

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