PMM recently spoke to an up-and-coming vehicle technician who has faced an uphill battle getting accepted into his local college.
Despite automotive vacancies still sitting at 2.3 per cent, the eleventh highest sector in the UK, according to the latest figures from the IMI, many prospective automotive learners are facing great difficulties entering the official college system. This was highlighted during a recent visit to one Nottinghamshire garage by the PMM editorial team.
PW Auto Repairs, a family garage run by Diana and Paul Whetton, has been supporting one of their employees in his struggle to get the full education he is entitled to. 17-yearold Lewis’ difficulties with Maths and English – stemming from his autism and ADHD – have resulted in Newark College initially refusing to accept him on to their automotive repair courses beyond Level One.
Passing the blame
His employer, Diana Whetton, played a crucial role in fighting his case with the college, spending “hundreds of hours, phoning and emailing people”, reaching out to a range of third party organisations to ask for help. She told PMM: “The college said his GCSE grades were not good enough to get on the course, but with autism and ADHD there should be consideration.” And, in fact, she discovered there was a way around the requirement for GCSEs in special cases.
Newark College accepted him on a Level One course and had agreed provisionally to allow him to undergo a Functional Skills qualification instead of the more stringent GCSEs. As it transpired, however, the college had in fact enrolled him into GCSE qualifications: “He’d been working really hard on his GCSEs at college and successfully completed his Level One course. Then, in a meeting with the college, they told me he wouldn’t be going into the next year for the Level Three, due to failing his English and Maths GCSEs. I said, I don’t understand because he’s kept his end of the bargain and you haven’t. He was never going to move the needle far enough on his grades to pass, due to his autism and ADHD. That’s why he was supposed to be on a Functional Skills qualification,” Diana told PMM. “Their response was, it’s funding and not our fault”.
Even though Diana had presented Newark College with a recent Government paper outlining that funding wouldn’t be affected in cases like Lewis’, it was to no avail. In fact, the college even suggested that Lewis switch course to take on bricklaying or plastering instead. A suggestion which found no favour with Lewis or Diana: “Lewis is the most passionate person about this industry that I’ve ever met. To suggest he change course when he has no interest in doing something else was quite frankly offensive.”
“I asked the head of automotive,” Diana explained. “If you take English and Maths out of the equation, could Lewis successfully complete the course in three years time? He said yes, with the right support…”
Diana then spent months talking to colleges, training providers, organisations and even other garages, to gain as much information as she possibly could to fight Lewis’ corner. “We wanted him on the three year course and I was just furious with the college.”
Other colleges offered options, however it wouldn’t be on a straight three-year Level Three course. Instead, he would have to go through another six years of training, after already completing a year on the Level One – making it seven years, to get to the same place his peers would in three years total.
Lewis told PMM that he was supremely grateful for the effort Diana has gone to in his case: “Not many bosses or workplaces would put so much effort into helping and pushing so much through to get the help needed. I just feel so grateful towards her and towards the company. I’ve been here for 18 months now, and I think I’ll miss it when I’m at college!”
Diana added: “Lewis hates even having a day off, he learns a lot at work and he is determined to complete the course. He has our full support”
Update from Diana: “Newark College have now signed Lewis up! The college eventually back-pedalled and said they would take Lewis on, despite there being no change in circumstances.”
