Whole class fails IT course – after being told they’d passed by Hornchurch college
Coral Knockton with son Oscar and Amanda Stone with son Jake at the college - Credit: Archant
Stunned college students have been left in limbo after discovering they all failed their IT course – having been told they had passed.
Teenagers halfway through a two-year course at Havering College of Further and Higher Education were told last week via email that they had been set the wrong assignment in their networking module and therefore failed the year.
The teacher for the module had told them they had all passed and even awarded some distinctions, before leaving the college mid-term.
This meant the 13 teenagers on the OCR Level 3 IT diploma in networking and systems support left in June believing they had completed all eight modules, but moderators OCR informed the college that was not the case.
Some had been planning to leave and get an apprenticeship with the one-year qualification, while others were set to carry on with the course.
The college has apologised for its mistake and set up an emergency workshop during the summer holidays to attempt to get the work done.
But only seven of the 13 students turned up to the first session. The others were either on holiday, working or opted out.
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Amanda Stone, whose son Jake, 17, is on the course, said: “I’m disgusted. You expect they are being taught the right thing.
“Now they have to do two months of work in eight days. Jake doesn’t want to go back. I’m having to fight to get him to go to the workshop, he’s so angry.
“He was going to do the two years originally but now he wants to leave and do an apprenticeship. I don’t want him going back there anyway.”
A spokeswoman for the college in Ardleigh Green Road, Hornchurch, said staff had acted quickly to find a solution that would “cause as little inconvenience as possible” and allow the students to complete the missing assignment before the start of term.
Jon Bennett, manager for IT and business at the college, said: “A mistake has been made but we are doing everything to put this right.”
