A Stirrer Investigation

LANGUAGE PROBLEMS CONTINUE FOR WALSALL STUDENTS

07-05-2008

The Walsall language school which has kept hundreds of students waiting months for their exam certificates has broken a promise to reopen at the end of April. We’ve also discovered that one of the key figures behind the school has been in similar difficulties before.

ATAC (Aspire Training And Education) has been exposed on this website and The Stirrer column in the Birmingham Mail for falsely claiming accreditation from a number of awarding bodies.

Our investigation was prompted by complaints from pupils who had spent £250 on the courses they needed to qualify as British citizens – but who then hadn’t been given the paperwork they needed to send to the Home Office. This placed their status in Britain in jeopardy.

We reported last month that it had been shut since the Easter break, and that its phone lines had been cut (http://tinyurl.com/6hcuuy).

A note on the website of ATAC’s new owners Concept Education – who are based at a London accommodation address – said it would reopen “at the end of the month”. Yet it remains closed.

A message on the site says that outstanding certificates have been sent from the awarding body and are being despatched. (http://www.concepteducation.co.uk/Bulletin%20Board.htm).

We’ve also discovered that ATAC’s self-styled Curriculum Manager Elaine Powell - a director of the company’s Birmingham-based predecessor Aspire which has now gone into liquidation - has a chequered past.

In 2005, the Birmingham Mail reported – in a now familiar scenario – that women who came to the city from Jamaica had been left waiting months for certificates.

They had enrolled in NVQ level two and three care courses and spent £1,400 – but complained their studies had come to nothing, forcing them to start again at colleges recognised by the Home Office.

Elaine Powell, who ran Aspire at the Beta First Leadership Centre in Hockley Hill, said at the time: "I have a lot of certificates here waiting to collected. These women need to come forward and talk to me about their cases.

When we tried contacting Elaine today, she failed to return our call.

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