The plan, announced on Monday, is part of a push to improve skills among young people and offer even workers who dropped out of school years ago a chance to gain official qualifications.

It marks the first time commercial companies have been granted permission to award nationally recognised academic qualifications based on their own workplace training schemes.

Experts and business leaders had mixed reactions to the plan, already being dubbed 'McQualifications'.

Mr John Cridland, deputy director-general of the Confederation of British Industry, said the plan is 'a significant milestone' in reforming official qualifications to better reflect the skills that employers seek.

Flybe chairman Jim French said the company found that many people were leaving the traditional education system effectively 'unemployable' because they had not developed the specific skills needed for a job.

'We believe we can work through the education system, with the education organisations, to ensure that when people come out with a foundation degree they are actually far more suited, far better skilled and equipped to undertake a task,' he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

However, the University and College Union said it was concerned the qualifications are too narrow.

'Just last week, a report revealed that some universities have concerns,' said union general secretary Sally Hunt. 'We are unsure whether those institutions would be clamouring to accept people with McQualifications.'

One of the most strident criticisms came from Ms Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT teaching union, said a report in The Financial Times.

'It is a huge mistake to allow McDonald's, with its poor track record of employment practice and anti-trade-union attitude, to pioneer private sector provision of training,' she said.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown defended the plan by insisting that the courses would be tough and intensive and would not amount to 'dumbing down', said a report in the Daily Express.

'It is going to be a tough course, but once you have got a qualification in management you can probably go anywhere,' he told Good Morning Television.

Mr Dean Burn, a 20-year-old McDonald's employee who will begin a university degree in nursing later this year, agreed with the Prime Minister.

He said his on-the-job experience and in-house training at the fast food chain had helped him get offers to study at two universities, even though he had fewer high-school credits than typically needed to enter a British university.

McDonald's plans to offer its British course to 7,000 restaurant managers across the country, regardless of their age.

Its employees will initially be offered a 'basic shift manager' course to train staff in everything they need to know to run a McDonald's outlet - from hygiene to customer service.

Network Rail and low-cost airline Flybe plan to offer even more advanced courses that could count towards vocational diplomas or even university degrees.

Network Rail is testing a course in track engineering while Flybe is planning an 'airline trainer programme' which will cover everything from engineering to cabin crew training.

Depending on the course, successful completion will be the equivalent of passing the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE), the standard exam taken at age 16 in England and Wales, or the Advanced Level, the higher exam taken at 18.

In Flybe's case, passing the training could result in a university-level degree.

All three companies plan to extend their programmes to offer more courses if trials are successful.

Mr Ken Boston, the chief executive of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, the regulator that approved the three companies, said applications from other employers would be considered.

Mr Steve DeWitt, senior director of public policy at the Virginia-based non-profit Association for Career and Technical Education, said that, 'on the surface', the British plan 'sounds like a good thing'.

'In terms of technical skills and workplace readiness, the employer is really the best person to gauge what the student will need,' he said.

'But one concern would be, would it be a valid measurement of the academics? The business is probably not the best judge of that.'

ASSOCIATED PRESS