Hi Folks,
thank you Bani and Lightbringer for your suggestions on my last thread:
http://www.immigrationboards.com/viewtopic.php?t=4364
well, was out of town last week, making a documentary for the austrian tv about the plan colombia fumigations in the ecuadorian jungle and came back yesterday to see that the decision letter had finally arrived last thrusday the 23rd. it said:
Academic Achievement - 15 points awarded.
With reference to paragraph 2/7 Annex C of the HSMP guidance instructions, you will note the qualifications have to be the equivalent to the recognised British standard of Bachelor's Master's or PhD to be awarded the respective points for each level of qualification.
Unfortunately, when assessing awards, we act solely on guidance given by UK NARIC. UK NARIC are the only body from whom we can accept equivalency information and as such, we were unable to assess your Master's award as Master's equivalent. Unfortunately we were therefore only able to award 15 points in this category for your Bachelor's award.
Work Experience - 25 points awarded.
The points were awarded in this section.
Achievement in Chosen Field - 0 points awarded.
We were not satisfied that the evidence provided demonstrated a 'significant achievement' as outlined in the HSMP guidance. With reference to paragraph 34/39 Annex C of the HSMP guidance instructions you will note that to be considered a significant achievement we would normally expect the evidence provided to demonstrate a breaktrough in your field of expertise, have contributed significantly to the development of your field, and be acknowledged by your peers. From the evidence provided, we did not consider that the achievement illustrated met the significant achievement criteria of the Highly Skilled Migrant Programme.
ok, now these are the strange points i have to discuss about this letter.:
1. the paragraphs 1 to 6 belong to the ' Young Person Assessment' section. so i dont see WHY my caseworker decided to refer to paragraphs 2,3,4,5 and 6 regarding the Educational Background sections.
2. same goes with the Significant Achievement paragraphs 34 / 39. paragraph 34 belongs to past earnings! are they even thinking when they type this ULTRA important letters which compromise our ENTIRE future plans and emotional stability??
3. paragraph 37 says
Examples of significant achievement could be:
•A breakthrough in your field of expertise, e.g. a piece of original published research that has been acknowledged by those in you field of work (evidence of this acknowledgement should be provided)
•A recognised artistic achievement
•A lifetime achievement award from an industry body
•An invention, which is likely to or has provided commercially successful.
it is CLEAR that it has to be ONLY ONE of these, not jsut a breaktrhough in my field that can directly be understood from her letter. this means, it is enough to have JUST a recognised artistic achievement, right?
ANYWAYS, i have some news from doncaster. i phoned my caseworker early this morning to her direct number and a guy told me she was away for the whole week. however i asked him some questions and he politely answer the following info:
1. it does NOT matter if i pass the 28 days deadline. they "understand those delays with the post services" especially in countries like mine. so this gives me a WHOLE week to prepare my review!!
2. he also said that i should wait until next monday, speak directly to my caseworker and fax her my review letter.
3. He said she is the only one authorized to check my case BUT that another caseworker will be reviewing my documents.
4. he said it would take between 4 - 6 weeks for the new caseworker to assess my application and it would NOT make any difference if i ask for an urgent treatment. he sarcastically said "EVERYONE wants urgent treatment!!".
5. i explained my NARIC dilemma to him and he said "it would definitely help your case if you have someone in NARIC inform that (explain below) directly".
6. he said there are hundreds of caseworkers and he has no idea who would be dealing with my application.
7. he said i could send any questions to the general email form hsmp team
8. he asked for my reference number so he could "update this conversation in their system". i asked again about "not having problems with those 28 days" he said "that is not a problem". since he knew who i was i asked for his full name. now i have another source i can quote on my review letter.
so taht was all in that conversation!
any ideas, suggestions, comments, critics, etc are MORE MORE MORE than welcome.
thank you for your support
best
jhonny