A childcare worker has been left empty-handed after being led to believe she had passed an NVQ qualification by her Bradford training organisation.

Dawn Langley only discovered she had not qualified when she contacted City and Guilds, in London, to find out where her certificate was.

Quadrant Training, which ran her two-year training, closed last year and she has been unable to contact anyone to find out why she was told she had passed when she had, in fact, not qualified.

Dawn, who lives at Woodside, started a two-year childcare and education course at Quadrant Training, Piccadilly, Bradford, in May 1996, finishing last year.

In November, she was told she had passed the course and waited for her certificate. By January of this year, Dawn had heard nothing. Her tutor at Calderdale College, Halifax, where Dawn had joined a course on day release from work, contacted City and Guilds only to be told the 21-year-old was not due to be given a certificate.

"When I think about it, it makes me feel ill. I am very angry and upset that a training organisation I trusted has misled me in this way. Two years of my life is wasted. All the work I have done is for nothing," she said.

She now has a job working in the nursery at Beacon Enterprises, Buttershaw, which she loves, and is continuing her studies at Calderdale College.

Quadrant Training was part of Share Training, which is based in Halifax. Anne Allan, from the training firm, said it had the best interests of Dawn at heart.

"There has been a communication problem between ourselves and the City and Guilds examining body, and if this has resulted in any misinterpretation between ourselves and the trainee involved, we can only apologise to her and reassure her that we only acted in good faith on the information we had available.

"We are currently reviewing our verification procedures with examining bodies to ensure that a similar misunderstanding does not occur again."

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