T - I don't think I am disparaging all GG. All I am saying is that cloth (or paper) doeth not make the man. And when I choose where to go for advice on gems or jewellery, whether one has a GIA qualification or not comes very very far down my list of criteria. Not only that, but I would advise anyone else to do the same. Not because a given GIA qualification is intrinsically worthless (it isn't) - but because it does not tell one enough about the true level of competence and expertise. So, the fact that a given shop advertises that their appraisals come from "GIA Graduates" is almost completely worthless - and if they were to advertise that the appraisals come from "GIA Graduate Gemologists" it would only be marginally better. Let me give you an example of what I mean:

For the last 20 years, I have gone to some of the best business schools in Europe to recruit graduating students from their MBA courses. They all are reasonably certain they will graduate, but only some have the particular mix of skills, attitudes and aptitudes that make them suitable for the job(s) my company is offering.

The key reason for going to a business school (or many) is not that the people leaving there have an MBA; it is that the school has effectively pre-selected a good number of motivated, intelligent, hard-working individuals who all become available for a new job at a certain time. The title/degree/qualification is secondary, and in fact not necessary; even the training and knowledge gained in the MBA are largely optional, and there are people that have highly succesful careers in my field without an MBA.

So, is the MBA useless? No, but it is not at all sufficient or even necessary. It's a good screening filter for me as a recruiter; my clients couldn't care less if the person working with them has an MBA; they do care that they are hard-working, conscientious, intelligent and that they (directly or indirectly) have expertise in the relevant field - which is not something taught during most (or any) MBA courses.

ah2, you are sweet. Thank you!

I'm just catching up with this thread, and there are some really interesting points here. My thoughts, for what they're worth:

I do agree that having a certain qualification doesn't make you vocationally suited to or expert in your field, but I do set some store by seeing the right letters after a name as a basic prerequisite. I'm all for formal study, and I'm very much in favour of education in vocational settings as well as purely academic. I wouldn't give my business to a lawyer who didn't have LLB and PGDipLP as a minimum, for example (in Scotland - there will be equivalent qualifications elsewhere).  

Still, in most vocations, there are people who excel in their field and have no qualifications at all. They should be TEACHING, not apologising. Academic study and vocational expertise go together to make a training course, and I think the GIA are quite good at recognising that at some levels.

Anyway, the various levels of GIA qualification are a great thing, to my mind. It means that you can pick the level that suits your needs / skills / level of interest and work to that. It means that people with a hobby interest, people who want to work in store front jobs and people who just need to know a little bit more for their jobs can work through some structured study to the right level. If only a degree or post graduate degree was offered, these people would be out of luck and would never be able to learn what they need.

On the other hand, for some, a full degree / post-grad degree is desirable and they can build on the foundation courses already undertaken if applicable.

It's a fairly common approach to higher education in the UK - I'm comfortable with it partly because I'm familiar with it. Many of the entry-level courses here can be completed by distance learning, that doesn't make them less valid.

My concerns are more about how these qualifications are regulated and represented. Ebay can be a shady place, and presenting someone who took some of the entry-level courses as being on a par with a Graduate Gemologist (diploma scroll notwithstanding) is misrepresentation. It isn't something that most other professions would stand for and I believe that the GIA, as the body awarding the qualifications, has a responsibility to tackle this, not ebay (although they make a lot of money from jewelry sales, so it wouldn't kill them to sharpen up a little either). The letters should mean something consistent, and the public should be able to rely on them as meaning something consistent.

There. I'm off my soap box now!  

Yeah, you're right. If you're stealing photos and passing them off as your own, you have bigger problems than the relative merits of paper qualifications.