Tuesday, April 23, 2013

The full and unabridged story of how we lost, more than once. Part #2

Read part one here..

It took less than two days for Hunna to find interim carpentry work once he was given notice.

It took just over two weeks for Hunna to find another ( we hoped better ) job.


This time the new Boss wanted to trial him for three months, saying " we will back date your apprenticeship " - because we had experienced this mentality over mature aged apprentices we obliged.

All going well we would only be two weeks behind our initial completion date.

Even better than that, the government had bought in competency based progression.

Meaning: if you were marked competent by Skilled Training Victoria ( the people who assess the schooling side of an apprenticeship) and then signed off by your employer - you could complete faster.

Three months passed and he was taken on as a third year apprentice. We were ecstatic. We signed the training contract and started off with high hopes.

In September we got a letter saying the apprenticeship had been processed but I noticed it stated Hunna's completion date as December 2013.

We were both rope-able. Our new completion date had been moved from September to December because they had not back dated the three months.

So 3.5 years just turned into three months shy of four.

He was barely better off for doing a pre- apprenticeship.

However, competency based completion gave us hope we could finish even before 3.5 years.

At Hunnas new job he was told he would be paid overtime. We could finally afford to move out, things were looking up.

Hunna worked hard and at the end of November he had completed all his schooling.

He spoke to his Skilled Training Victoria assessor. The man said "it would make him look bad" if Kyle completed so soon.


He was told the relevant information would be compiled and sent off for assessment and processing in January.

On January 23rd the assessor sent off the information to be processed.

8 weeks later, Hunna called the STV guy when nothing had arrived in the mail.

On March 24th he called STV Ballarat and was told by a very rude lady " she had better things to do"

Even later he called another man who informed him everything had been sent to his employer "to save on postage" one envelope for Hunna and one for his Boss - containing his certificate three in construction and a letter.

Once this letter was signed and sent off Hunna would be a fully qualified carpenter. The Boss would hand over the certificate and we'd be free!

Hunna called his Boss. He avoided him. Things started to smell a little fishy. When he finally pinned his Boss down he was told " he should finish his time".

This is most definitely not what we wanted to hear. This is most definitely more about greed and saving money because he only has to pay him apprenticeship wages. Most definitely more about an industry mentality when it comes to apprenticeships.

Especially because he has been signed off in all aspects of his schooling.

Especially because an actual certificate, the one that means you are qualified and that STV is happy for you to be qualified, is just sitting on the Boss' desk somewhere. Collecting dust..

But since we have a contract until December, we can't do much about it.

So much for competency based completion....

So much for moving on from the horrible world of apprenticeships.




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