By Gary Cooper

A FORFAR mother-of-two yesterday told how an administrative blunder shattered her dreams of learning new skills to improve her career prospects.

Sandra Valentine was overjoyed when she started a Scottish Vocational Qualifications (SVQ) course at Dundee College after passing an exhaustive selection process—only to be told her placement was being withdrawn over a funding wrangle.

Mrs Valentine (42), a senior care assistant in a Forfar residential home for elderly people, condemned the college for not doing its homework and for what it put her through.

“This whole experience has broken my heart as I was so looking forward to furthering my education and having a feeling of self-worth and achievement,” she said.

Her hopes were raised this summer when a college representative went to Lochbank House, where Mrs Valentine has worked for nine years, promoting its courses.

The care assistant had expressed to her boss an interest in taking on an SVQ Level 4 course in health and social care in adults, having already passed it at Level 3.

Mrs Valentine sailed through an interview to land one of eight places being offered in Angus. She said during these stages she was not asked about who had funded her Level 3 training.

Certificates clearly showing she had been a modern apprentice who had previously been funded by Scottish Enterprise were also copied at this point.

The student took time off work to attend an induction day last month.

Yet another visit by the college was arranged, this time to sign papers for Mrs Valentine to access funding for the course which she and her counterparts had already started.

But the college then dropped a bombshell in a phone call to the manager at Lochbank House, revealing Mrs Valentine was no longer on the course.

“Because I had had funding before as a modern apprentice, I was not being funded again,” continued Mrs Valentine, upset she had not been told personally.

During a later meeting with an apologetic college worker, Mrs Valentine expressed anger that the funding question had not been resolved at the outset.

She understood three others had also suffered the same funding fate.

Determined not to give up, Mrs Valentine offered to pay the cost of up to £1500 for the course, but is adamant it will be with another provider.

“I feel that, for an educational college, surely they should have done their homework first before interviewing hopeful candidates and people like me just looking to achieve something worthwhile in life.”

College vocational training manager Donald Maclean said the institution does not fund this form of training but draws it from Scottish Enterprise and confirmed that students funded in the past would normally not be eligible for further funding.

“In the case of Mrs Valentine, any previous funding should have been flagged when college staff entered her National Insurance number into the computer system,” he said.

“Unfortunately, and this did not come to light until much later, Dundee College had the wrong National Insurance number. An error of just one character meant that Mrs Valentine’s previous funding was not revealed until much later in the process than is normally deemed acceptable.”

Mr Maclean said the care worker was clearly an ideal candidate for the programme, and added, “We regret the disappointment that Mrs Valentine has endured and hope that she will recover from this and continue to successfully develop her career.”