FErret is right behind David Sherlock, chief executive of the Adult Learning Inspectorate, in his desire to increase the nation’s standards of literacy. But my colleagues were concerned to read an article penned by Mr Sherlock, filed for publication in this week’s FE Focus, which revealed that young modern apprentices had been “welding a spanner” on a Rolls Royce Trent, a popular make of jet engine used on commercial airliners.
Could this be? Before you all go cancelling your bucket-shop flights to the Canaries, and before the manufacturers ask their lawyers to take us to the cleaners, a word of reassurance: the sentence should have read “wielding a spanner on the gleaming Rolls-Royce Trent” - under strict supervision, of course.
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