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O levels were dreadful qualfications. They tested nothing of any value. All they tested was your ability to regurgitate a fairly predictable set of key facts.

Good at problem solving? Good at working together in a group? Good at doing stuff (instead of knowing stuff)? Good at finding stuff out rather than memorising a tiny proportion of it? Good at applying what you've learned to real life scenarios?

If you answered 'yes' to any of these - well, no-one would ever know if you took O levels. Because they measured none of the above.

If you think about the skills you need to get through life and perform jobs in 2012 Britain, then O levels are about as far away as those skills as you can get.

Believe me, I was one of the last group in the UK to take them. I very quickly learned that I didn't need to do any work whatsoever for three years. I just memorised a small number of key points, regurgitated them into essays, and got good results.