Kevin Adamson

For those who are unaware the construction industry are bringing in a card (Construction skills certification scheme).Many if not all the major construction companies are signed up and will not employ persons without the proper certificates.

To obtain a card you must take a health and safty test (No problem with that) and have passed an nvq.This is where it goes into the twighlight zone.

My 5 year apprenticship is no longer recognised so my company signed me up to take an nvq.A bloke visited me at work and I signed about 30 sheets of paper which were my "coursework" it took about 20 minuites he said he would fill in the rest. Another guy visited a few weeks later to take some photos of me at work. I now have an nvq.

Someone is on a right earner out of this scam, and who is paying for it?

You are

Little Englander (sour)

The same thing happened when HSE took over the running of C.O.R.G.I., all previous qualifications were ignored and everyone had to "re-qualify" to "their" standards, it cost us all a fortune in fees and time lost attending "egg sucking" courses. Most galling was that no one failed, because of this:
1. The public were not better protected (the proclaimed purpose of the changes)
2. C.O.R.G.I. instructing and assessing schools sprang up all over the place, promising to turn out gas "engineers" in a matter of days.
3. Everybody is making plenty of money at the customers expense.
4. The "cowboys" are still out there.
5. I retired.

C_steam

@Ranter.

Speaking as (a while ago) a qualified and experienced NVQ Assessor, APL advisor and internal verifier, your NVQ represents the very worst aspects of some of the shady practice that has gone on in this field. Depending on the level, your age and the precise NVQ you undertook, your NVQ provider would have been in reciept of government funding for the provision of the qualification - tell me the 'q' number of your qualification and your age and I can give you an approx figure. (for engineering quals which admittedly attract a higher rate, you are looking at C: 15K for a level 3, 4-5K for a level 2, in both cases for those U19, multiply by around 55% for adult rate.

So you are right. The good news is you can do something about it. There are a couple of options:-

talk to the external verifier if you know who that is (you should, but they probably didn't tell you. Contact the 'centre co-ordinator' of the college / provider who gave you the qualification.

OR

Contact the 'awarding body' - It'll be on your certificate, but probably the ECITB (since the passport scheme is administered by them)

OR go straight to the top - the QCA = qualification and curriculum authority (Customer Relations, Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, 83 Piccadilly,
London, W1J 8QA)

You may want to keep this confidential, as there may be some (small) risk of your own award being invalidated - although my personal view is that this is unlikely as you already have proof of competency through your apprenticeship.

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Kevin Adamson

C steam it was a NVQ 2 and I definatley fall into the mature student class

How high up would I have to go to find someone who was not in on this fraud?
My employers and the college that "ran" the course knew, does the CITB or even the QCA .The govenment department that was funding it?

It seems there has been a lot of money changing hands just so a bricklayer of over 30 years experiance can have a card that says Im a bricklayer.

stathan

NVQ qualifications would be laughable if it wasn't for the seriousness of the situation.


Successive Governments have totally dismantled our prized skilled apprenticeship schemes to replace them with 'everybody will pass' NVQ qualifications.

I have 32 years experience within the gas industry and am currently in charge of approx 70 engineers and am horrified with what has happened within our industry.

Corgi are currently sanctioning and licencing people who 'tag on' a 4 week gas course on the end of a plumbing NVQ and sending them out into the world as fully qualified CORGI registered engineers.



It is truly frightening, these guys know absolutely nothing and after questioning many of them about their 'No Fail' NVQ training I feel that the newly set up, get rich quick training centres should be shut down immediately.


The newly qualified engineers are a danger to both themselves and an unsuspecting public.



IT IS NOTHING SHORT OF A NATIONAL SCANDAL!!!!




NVQs embody all that is bad about our non existent trades training programmes and the whole con of a system should be dismantled immediately.


Those involved within the NVQ system are quite frankly covering up an absolute disgrace and something needs to be done about this ludicrous farce of a training programme and CORGI in general AT ONCE!!