So after a year of bending ears and being annoying, my employers have agreed to let me do the qualification that I should have to do the job I do.
Sounds slightly backwards I know, but although experience is very nice, having those bit of paper do matter sometimes......particularly when it comes to Ofsted inspectors apparently which is the real reason behind why I am being allowed to do a qualification.
When I first moved from the Private Sector into Education and the Wonderful World of the Public Sector (where according to the Daily Mail we all turn up for 3 hours a day, sit in gold-plated chairs and generally do very little until the day we can retire early with our amazing pensions that pay us all a huge sum of money so we spend our twilight years living up on the Costa-Del-Sol) one of the things I did think might be a perk of the job was that the training should be easily accessible and, indeed, very good. Now I have been assured by curriculum staff (and indeed many of the students I look after) that the training on offer is very good. I just haven't be allowed to do any of it myself.
It's not that I think these things should be handed out by employers like Smarties, but I do think good training is important. And if you can help your staff to get properly qualified the all the better. They will be better at their jobs, you get to have staff that tick all the boxes and (believe it or not) they will appreciate you for it.
The problem I am wrestling with today, is that although I am really grateful to have been given the opportunity to train, the NVQ they have enrolled me on is a Level 2, and I should be doing the Level 4.....not just because I am Great (although we already know this to be true) but because the Mandatory Units in the Level 2 do not match my job role in any way, shape or form because that qualification is designed for people who work on Reception desks, whereas I am the person to whom the people on the Reception desk send people for appointments.
The upshot of this whole debacle is that I am going to not only have to do big piles of homework to complete this qualification, I am going to have to create work so that I meet the Mandatory Units (and indeed the optional ones as these don't tie-in either). The qualification is not the right level, therefore I won't be able to put it on my CV or it will look like I'm lying about what my duties actually are to future prospective employers as to get the Level 2 you need to be doing different types of work to what I actually do, and employers in my industry will know this as they will be familiar with it. Add to that the fact that if I leave within 2 years, I will have to pay back the cost of my training (which is highly likely due to the fact that I am on a fixed-term contract and I can't risk staying right to the wire if they don't renew it, and in my game at the moment, you have to go where there is work as the Government are pulling funding left, right and centre) and it really doesn't seem like I will be getting a good deal out of this.
I will be left with a qualification I can't use, which will cause me huge amounts of extra work and stress over the next few months, which I will also have to pay for. I don't think I'm going to bother, although it will be interesting to see how they react to that. I am yet to really put my foot down with this employer and I have a feeling it will explode in my face........am I being ungrateful and unreasonable? Maybe I am........I just don't know any more......
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