Asda's degree

It has been revealed today that Asda is going to offer a degree course for its staff.

The three-year course, in either distribution or retail, is being offered in partnership with Middlesex University and 30 employees will initially take part.

The scheme involves 12 days of classroom workshops, work-based assessment as well as online studies, leading to a BA degree.

Asda has said students will learn about merchandising as well as managing and developing people.

And a spokeswoman for the retail giant said the course was being offered because so many supermarket staff had left school without the opportunity to attended higher education - in many cases due to the cost of tuition fees.

Supermarket chain Morrisons also runs a foundation degree in supermarket operations.

Clearly I’ve been a pretty consistent supermarket-basher throughout the course of this blog. But credit where it’s due; I think this is actually an example of some good being done by the supermarkets.