This is very interesting. I am slightly confused by the perceived need to compare things that are not similar and somehow fuse 'extra value' into them.
All the mountain qualifications are hard work - and they keep you working hard with the almost ceaseless update courses that you need to attend, if you want to keep your ML (Summer and Winter), MIA, SPA or MIC alive and usable. In that respect alone, they should be worth more than, say, a bachelor's degree.
This last is three, or sometimes four, years of study that involves exams and/or continual assessment. After your finals, you have a ceremony where you wear a bat cloak and look slightly self-conscious while your parents take photos. But does your university ever come back a few years later and check that you can still analyse poetry or work out coefficients still? No. After a number of years, you can actually pay to upgrade your Oxbridge degree from a BA to an MA. No exams and hardly any writing other than that on the cheque. It does mean you can get rid of the rabbit's fur on your academic hood, though!
What with the, let's say, 'changing' demands and standards of academic courses in schools and therefore, by extension, universities, is it fair to compare a hard-earned, consistently tough and committing outdoor qualification, be it for the mountains, sailing, canoeing, kayaking, diving or whatever, that requires ongoing training and reassessment, with GCSE's, A levels or degrees?
I think that qualifications in the outdoor industry should achieve both a higher profile and, nost definitely, a higher status but it would be a mistake to compare them with other, more widely available academic qualifications. A fish is always a fish, never an orange; even if you painted it orange, it's still a fish.
