UK Electrical Qualifications ECS Card

[Craighrvy]

Hi all sorry long post

Looking for some advice.

I've just been made redundant. Starting to get back to applying for jobs and everyone is looking for NVQ Level 3, with ECS gold card as a preference.

I started my apprenticeship in 1996, obtained these qualifications along the way

2391 Level 3 Certificate in Inspection Testing and Certification of Electrical Installations

2350 Electrical Installation Engineering Level 2
2350 Electrical Installation Engineering Level 3
2360-07 Level 3 Certificate in Electrical Installation Theory Part 2
2360-05 Level 2 Certificate in Electrical Installation Theory Part 1
2360-03 Level 3 Certificate in Electrical Installation Work - Course C
2380-01 16th edition + 17th edition amemdment

I also covered off AM1 and AM2 in this time.

So I had all the elements for NVQ Level 3, or so I thought.

It turns out that on completion of my apprenticeship, my employer was supposed to send off my training contract and certificates, so I would then receive my diploma and NVQ Level 3. Looks like this never happened.

So fast forwards 20 years and I've never had to apply for another job until now, so this has all come to light.

This is were things get even more frustrating.

So I've checked for the ECS card application requirements, and if you don't have the level 3 qualification actual, if you finished training between 1994 and September 1997, providing you have part 1, part 2 and AM2 with a job reference you can apply. Punchline is I finished my apprenticeship in May 2000 so I don't qualify.

What I don't get is how people that trained BEFORE me, by less than a year qualify yet I don't, even though they would have done exactly the same courses as me.

I also wouldn't have been able to take and complete the C course or 2391 if I didn't have NVQ Level 3 so it doesn't make sense.

I'm absolutely at my wits end with this, I've appealed to JIB to get some mitigation hopefully but on talking on the phone there is no wiggle room at all.

They are telling me I have to do a mature candidates course to qualify, which means £1500 and 18 months which I don't have. I'm 40 years old now with a family and massive mortgage.

I've just shelled out £500 to do my 18th edition thinking that would get me up to date and now this

I'm hoping someone might be able to offer me some advice, maybe someone has been in the same boat?

Like I said I just lost my job and the last thing I need is this rubbish. This was meant to be my thing to fall back on and it's basically looking like I wasted 5 years at college.

I'm going to contact my apprenticeship employers to see if they can help but I'm not holding my breath

 

[KennyKen]

I Lost my certificates when I applied for migration to Australia. C&G will have them on file. I had to pay a fee for them to look into their archives. But they were all there. Including my Am1 & 2

 

[Scintillam]

Craig have you had an ecs card before or is this your first application?

 

[Craighrvy]

Craig have you had an ecs card before or is this your first application?

This is my first application.

I didn't realise at the time that the JIB would have the monopoly when it comes to employment 20 years later.

When I left my job where I was an apprentice, I've been with the same compony since in various guises, working my way up to a management position for the last 10 years of those, so I've not needed to keep things up to date.

 

[AJshep]

Were you sponsored by someone like the JTL when you did your apprenticeship? You might be able to contact them?

When you speak to the ECS its like speaking to the Little Britain character, the one who said, "The computer said no".

 

[Ian1981]

Hi all sorry long post

Looking for some advice.

I've just been made redundant. Starting to get back to applying for jobs and everyone is looking for NVQ Level 3, with ECS gold card as a preference.

I started my apprenticeship in 1996, obtained these qualifications along the way

2391 Level 3 Certificate in Inspection Testing and Certification of Electrical Installations

2350 Electrical Installation Engineering Level 2
2350 Electrical Installation Engineering Level 3
2360-07 Level 3 Certificate in Electrical Installation Theory Part 2
2360-05 Level 2 Certificate in Electrical Installation Theory Part 1
2360-03 Level 3 Certificate in Electrical Installation Work - Course C
2380-01 16th edition + 17th edition amemdment

I also covered off AM1 and AM2 in this time.

So I had all the elements for NVQ Level 3, or so I thought.

It turns out that on completion of my apprenticeship, my employer was supposed to send off my training contract and certificates, so I would then receive my diploma and NVQ Level 3. Looks like this never happened.

So fast forwards 20 years and I've never had to apply for another job until now, so this has all come to light.

This is were things get even more frustrating.

So I've checked for the ECS card application requirements, and if you don't have the level 3 qualification actual, if you finished training between 1994 and September 1997, providing you have part 1, part 2 and AM2 with a job reference you can apply. Punchline is I finished my apprenticeship in May 2000 so I don't qualify.

What I don't get is how people that trained BEFORE me, by less than a year qualify yet I don't, even though they would have done exactly the same courses as me.

I also wouldn't have been able to take and complete the C course or 2391 if I didn't have NVQ Level 3 so it doesn't make sense.

I'm absolutely at my wits end with this, I've appealed to JIB to get some mitigation hopefully but on talking on the phone there is no wiggle room at all.

They are telling me I have to do a mature candidates course to qualify, which means £1500 and 18 months which I don't have. I'm 40 years old now with a family and massive mortgage.

I've just shelled out £500 to do my 18th edition thinking that would get me up to date and now this

I'm hoping someone might be able to offer me some advice, maybe someone has been in the same boat?

Like I said I just lost my job and the last thing I need is this rubbish. This was meant to be my thing to fall back on and it's basically looking like I wasted 5 years at college.

I'm going to contact my apprenticeship employers to see if they can help but I'm not holding my breath

Taking courses such as the 2391 and the 18th edition do not make a difference to your core training qualifications, these are separate courses that anyone can do.
The NVQ 3 is a competency qualification that links with your 236 level 2&3 electrotechnical theory qualifications so you require both theory and practical to gain the status of electrician under the ECS grading scheme. My NVQ3 and key skills when I was an apprentice got skewed up so I never bothered querying it, so 7 or 8 years ago I had to redo the NVQ 3 but it is the minimum requirement that the ECS will accept.