The cost of training

Ramagamma

Hi, not sure if this is the perfect place to ask about this, and i'm partly going off on a rant here, but I just wanted some words of advice about the situation my girlfriend is in.

Presently, she is working in a nursery as a trainee. She works a full 40 hour week, doing a SQA level 2 in childcare. Presently she is paid around £2.75 an hour. All in all, she earns around 450 a month. Now I have zero experience with these kind of qualification courses but from what I gather, it'as basically the equivalent of an apprenticeship. She lives with me, 15 miles from the nursery and so has to travel in by bus 5 days a week.

Now, she already has to pay her own travel expenses. This amounts to around £90 a week. When I myself went to university, I didn't get any travel expenses, however I wasn't really being employed.

We've just found out that they are pulling funding for level 2 of the course she is on. Now she has to pay for her own course, which works out at £1000. £200 of this is paid for by the training company, leaving her with a bill of £800 to pay. She can pay this over a year for £67 a month.

Now, I don't know about you, but this sounds ridiculous to me. By the time she has paid these expenses, she's effectively earning less than someone on the dole.

Does anyone have any experience with these kinds of courses or with expense claims for this kind? I work full time so I can support her while she earns her course, and we should be significantly better off when she does, it's just madness she has to pay almost half her wage just to get to her work and earn her qualification.

Thanks anyways for letting me rant.

Ramagamma

andrewjf

That does sound painful, but take the long term view. She's gaining a valuable qualification which will improve her career prospects. Luckily you can provide support.

comeandgo

How old is she and how far through her training/apprenticehsip is she.

comeandgo

https://www.gov.uk/national-minimum-wage-rates

Ramagamma

She is 19, I'm not sure how much of her course is left to run through. She has just recieved an invoice for the next 12 months although she has been working at the Nursery for around a year and a half. She was originally doing her level 3 but was advised to drop down to level 2 and complete that first.

saintjammyswine

Is she on an apprenticeship or "basically the equivalent of an apprenticeship"?
How old is she?
Travel costs are normal and cant be refunded as she is in training although the training provider may have access to bursary funding.

It doesnt quite sound right as if she is on an apprenticeship then she will NOT have to pay towards it, any fees outside funding should be met by the employer.

Would be worth her checking her contract and agreement with the training provider.

saintjammyswine

Ah, just noticed you are in Scotland, I only know about the English system sorry it may be different there.

Ramagamma

Yeah, up in Scotland here. Thanks for the information anyway. Like I said, she's 19 and worked at the nursery pretty much straight out of school. She doesn't have any kind of contract.

Takeaway_Addict

Ramagamma wrote: »

Yeah, up in Scotland here. Thanks for the information anyway. Like I said, she's 19 and worked at the nursery pretty much straight out of school. She doesn't have any kind of contract.

She does have a contract, the fact she is turning up to work at set times for a set pay etc denotes the contract.

Does she HAVE to do this qualification to work for the nursery?

alexjonsson

saintjammyswine wrote: »

It doesnt quite sound right as if she is on an apprenticeship then she will NOT have to pay towards it, any fees outside funding should be met by the employer.

That's right, and if she's not on an official apprenticeship program, she needs to talk to her employer about them paying her the correct wage. Either way, it seems like she's getting screwed at the moment.

Ramagamma

I don't think it's an official apprenticeship. It's through a company called "Training Solutions".

As for contracts, I don't think she has anything official. She frequently gets asked to work a "late" for example. This only means she has to stay for 15 minutes past her normal time but this does make her miss her bus home.

I've certainly never seen anything she's signed that establishes hours or rate of pay.

Lastly, all the other people that work at the nursery and get paid at least minimum wage all have this qualification.

I've always felt something was not quite right about these employment terms.