College Course

JKB2016

Hi, I need advice on what my rights are and if I have a case against a college I attended.

In 2018 I decided to change careers and enrolled on a gas engineers course.

I attended college almost every Saturday for 2 years. I spent months working at home on a Sunday completing an Off site portfolio, this is evidence of Gas work completed in college and shows the student is building the technical knowledge.

I had to complete an On site portfolio showing work completed in the real world. To do this I took a £20k pay cut for around 9 months as I seen it as an investment in my future.

I took the final exams, passed them and sent both my off site and on site portfolio to the college in 2020.

The college then has to review my portfolio and submit it to BPEC for approval and have my certificate sent to me.

The college never sent my portfolio to BPEC. I constantly asked the teacher for an update on my portfolio and was constantly fobbed off with promises and lies.

Last year the teacher told me he was submitting my portfolio soon and asked me would I like to attend a Government funded set of courses to gain skills in the Green Energy market. He told me I shouldn’t be able to attend as I didn’t have my Gas certificate but as my certificate would be coming soon he would let me attend.

I attended 2 nights a week for 8 weeks and since then I still haven’t received my Gas certificate or my Green Skills certificates.

I had a meeting with the owner last week who agreed the college have messed this up and offered to give me my money back as I paid £4,700 for the course.

On reflection , I’ve decided this is insufficient as I took that £20k pay cut, I spent nearly 2 years of my time attending every Saturday , spent months of my time on a Sunday working at home on my portfolio, spent my time of 2 nights a week for 8 weeks at the Green skills courses and have nothing to show for it.

The college also defrauded the Government funded programme in allowing me to attend the Green Skills.
 

So my question is - Do you think I have a case to take this legal and if so what kind of solicitor would have knowledge of this area?

Jumblebumble

Presumably both your Skills you have developed and your portfolio are transferable
Too many missing details
What have BPEC advised?
Why can the college not send the portfolio tomorrow?
Do the College consider your portfolio adequate?
Why have you waited 5 Years?
Have the  college refunded you yet and if yes was it "in full and final settlement"?


I think any sensible solicitor will say to you
" Sure We can take this on as soon as your initial cheque for £1000 clears we will crack on

born_again

Is this "College" still trading & who are  they?

JKB2016

Jumblebumble said:

Presumably both your Skills you have developed and your portfolio are transferable
Too many missing details
What have BPEC advised?
Why can the college not send the portfolio tomorrow?
Do the College consider your portfolio adequate?
Why have you waited 5 Years?
Have the  college refunded you yet and if yes was it "in full and final settlement"?


I think any sensible solicitor will say to you
" Sure We can take this on as soon as your initial cheque for £1000 clears we will crack on

Thanks for the response.

1. My skills are not transferable as I’m an electrician and the course was purely gas work.

2. I haven’t spoken to BPEC yet. I wanted to explore all options before I submit formal complaints.

3. The college could send the portfolio tomorrow but it would be pointless. The process in Gas qualifications is Course > On/off site portfolio . Once portfolio is submitted and approved, a MLP certificate is sent out. Once MLP is received, I would have to attend a physical exam where an assessor watches the candidate install gas work to a competent standard. This is called the ACS. Once ACS is complete the candidate receives full gas qualifications. I’ve explained to the college that so much time has passed since submitting my portfolio I have forgotten a lot of the basics required to complete the ACS exam.

4. Yes the college consider my portfolio adequate, last week they offered to submit it and as explained above I’ve lost a lot of the knowledge required to pass the ACS.

5. I have chased the college /teachet for the last 5 years, constantly messaging, emailing, ringing. I have a long list of emails and text messages as evidence of my efforts to resolve this.

6. No, they have not refunded anything yet. Last week they offered to refund me the cost of the course -£4,700. I feel this is insufficient after everything I done/lost through no fault of my own.

JKB2016

born_again said:

Is this "College" still trading & who are  they?

Yes they are still trading and I don’t want to name them here at the moment as I don’t understand any potential legal ramifications of that.

cmthephoenix

Would £4,700 be enough to compensate the additional time you have to spend re-learning the things you need to be able to pass the exams and get the certificates as I think that really gets you where you need to be.

At what point in the 5 years did you escalate things to the owner as the teacher wasn't getting you to where you needed to be and what was his initial response?

Be aware if you decide to go legal then a court would often expect you to have 'clean hands' to find in your favour.
"The college also defrauded the Government funded programme in allowing me to attend the Green Skills"
From what you've said "He told me I shouldn’t be able to attend as I didn’t have my Gas certificate but my certificate would be coming soon he would let me attend" the tutor made you aware that it was defrauding the government (taxpayers) and so in that regard by proceeding you did so in the knowledge that is was fraud albeit not initially suggested by you.

Jumblebumble

JKB2016 said:

Jumblebumble said:

Presumably both your Skills you have developed and your portfolio are transferable
Too many missing details
What have BPEC advised?
Why can the college not send the portfolio tomorrow?
Do the College consider your portfolio adequate?
Why have you waited 5 Years?
Have the  college refunded you yet and if yes was it "in full and final settlement"?


I think any sensible solicitor will say to you
" Sure We can take this on as soon as your initial cheque for £1000 clears we will crack on

Thanks for the response.

1. My skills are not transferable as I’m an electrician and the course was purely gas work.

2. I haven’t spoken to BPEC yet. I wanted to explore all options before I submit formal complaints.

3. The college could send the portfolio tomorrow but it would be pointless. The process in Gas qualifications is Course > On/off site portfolio . Once portfolio is submitted and approved, a MLP certificate is sent out. Once MLP is received, I would have to attend a physical exam where an assessor watches the candidate install gas work to a competent standard. This is called the ACS. Once ACS is complete the candidate receives full gas qualifications. I’ve explained to the college that so much time has passed since submitting my portfolio I have forgotten a lot of the basics required to complete the ACS exam.

4. Yes the college consider my portfolio adequate, last week they offered to submit it and as explained above I’ve lost a lot of the knowledge required to pass the ACS.

5. I have chased the college /teachet for the last 5 years, constantly messaging, emailing, ringing. I have a long list of emails and text messages as evidence of my efforts to resolve this.

6. No, they have not refunded anything yet. Last week they offered to refund me the cost of the course -£4,700. I feel this is insufficient after everything I done/lost through no fault of my own.

I suppose the next question is 
Do you think you will actually receive the £4700 bearing the quantity of "I will do it tomorrow's"  you have suffered