richmag69

Hi I have recently discovered this site and in reading past posts I believe I have overestimated both myself and my wifes points for education on our skilled worker application.
The highest education we both have is a BTEC Ordinary National Diploma (Business Studies(me)/Travel and Tourism(wife)) which is a 2 year full time course at A' Level standard and we both have 13 years of education (6 primary/5 secondary/2 college). I interpreted this to be 15 points for me - 'Obtained a one-year diploma, trade certificate or apprenticeship and completed at least 13 years of full-time or full-time equivalent studies' (only claiming 1 yr diploma as for 2 yr diploma I needed 14 years education which I didn't have). And 3 points in the adaptabilty section for my wife based on the same criteria.
However, from what I have been reading it appears that an Ordinary National Diploma(OND) doesn't count as post secondary education and the dipolma they are referring to has to be at least the Higher National Diploma(HND) level. Please can anyone help - is this correct? because if so I am way short on points!! And I am expecting to hear soon as I am July 2005 AOR.
Presumably if I am short I would have to do a 2yr diploma first to get the points and then apply again and have at least a 4yr wait on top of the 2yrs - 6yr wait in total!!?
My 2nd question is whether my probation period in my job as a firefighter would count as a an apprenticeship? To become fully qualified as a firefighter I had to do a 13 week full time course and was then a probationary firefighter on station for 2 years and became fully qualified after 4 years with on the job training and a few week long courses at the training centre during this time culminating in a qualified test at 4 years. Please someone throw me a lifeline - would this qualify as at least a 2 year apprenticeship which would give me the points I need? Mr Miller your comments would very much be appreciated.

Thankyou.

Robin (The Gadget family)

I am told that my 2 year police training/probation period will count as a 2 yr apprenticeship so hopefully yours will too. We've applied on the basis that my consultant said that my education and training will be sufficient to get us in, (combined with the other point factors), we certainly hope so.......but at the end of the day we'll just have to wait and see what the IO says when he/she processes our application in 39-45 months time, won't we?.......

richmag69

Thanks for that Robin - that certainly gives me hope. How did you prove your apprenticeship? - was it just from your contract of employment?
I will write to CHC and hopefully they will allow me to add the points for a 2 year apprenticeship. I didn't state this in my original application because I thought my OND was my highest qualification and I thought I had enough points anyway! Although no-one has denied or confirmed my suspicions about the OND yet - if anyone knows please could you enlighten me and set my mind at rest? - Or not!!
I will let everyone know what the decision is as soon as I find out which hopefully won't be too long (I think they are processing May or June 2005 at the moment)
Good luck with your application (I thought 30 months was bad enough but 39-45 months is crazy!!)

lins and Stef McLachlan

Hi
We have some paperwork which shows how various Canadian bodies view the Police Probationary period as a two year apprenticeship, which then gives you an additional 2 years education. If you PM me with your address i will pop a copy in the post to you......chances are it will at least point you in the direction of where to ask those questions. I would think that Firefighting is classed as similar from a skills level viewpoint.

Unfortunately I can't scan it to my computer for some reason as it would not allow me to attach it to anything else....then the hard drive crashed....we lost most of what it contained. I do have hard copies though as we attached it to our application.

Cheers
Stef and Lindsay