They say write about what you know, that’s what I’ve done in my stories on Medium.
By: Mark Benniman
Tags: Life, Education, Life Lessons, UK, Opportunity

I lived in Hong Kong For three and a half years, I lived in Bangkok for two and a half years, I lived in London for seven years, I lived in Paris for two years, I spent six months in the middle East, I lived in Cheltenham for three years while studying, I lived in Wales for five years and I come from Devon England where I grew up and have spent my most recent eight years.

I have been on incapacity benefit later employment support allowance, partly because of an eye condition and partly because of a mental health condition, I had back to work club a few times over the years, where you go along to get help getting back into work, it seemed to me most of the other people probably didn’t have any qualifications but there I sat several times, the people taking the course didn’t seem to have a degree which is fine, I remember one who took the whole week’s course once and she openly said that she hadn’t been to university, which is understandable but you should consider that I have been to university. I also remember one of the staff said that he had taught in further education ‘but that he didn’t have a qualfication as good as mine.’ I was later penalised with the loss of a day’s benefit because I missed a mock interview with that very same person, I tried to justify that it had slipped my mind (which it really had) and went on to say that I was a graduate after all? The person I was talking to stamped her foot and said ‘we are all graduates here.’ I recently found some statistics for my home town for the year 2011, it said that 24% of the population had no qualifications. Just to show that this probably wasn’t fair and not just my imaginings I can say that in 2009 I passed all the tests to be offered a second PGCE course teaching IT in secondary schools through the graduate teacher training registry the gttr, and in 2011 I was offered a place on a master’s degree studying intercultural-communication both of which would have qualified me in the top 10% of the adults of this country and both of which are not easy to get.

In 2017 I was told by the benefits agency that I didn’t score enough points in my assessment to carry on receiving employment support allowance, that I would have to go on job seeker’s allowance, but the upsetting thing about that was I had really tried under the umbrella of having benefits and support from my wife, I kept trying and trying for years with no success which made me very upset, after all, they say you compete with about 100 people for any good job yet it seems to go without saying that you have a good job? Sadly for me and my family I was always in the 99 people who were unsuccessful. I was supported in my application to review the decision about employment support allowance and it was overturned and I’ve been on it ever since but although it pays for the basics in life it brings me no satisfaction. I think as someone said on the news today each time you send an unsuccessful job application it chips away at your confidence and that it’s always been a dog eat dog environment.

My qualifications: Higher national diploma, bachelor of science, postgraduate diploma in business administration, postgraduate certificate in education specialising in post compulsory education and training at master’s level and up until 2014 I was a member of the institute for learning. All these things would have put letters after my name HND, BSc, PG Dip, PCET PGCE, MIFL sitting there on incapacity benefit or down at job club and no one anywhere even remotely interested for years and years in anything I’ve said or done :)

I remember a conversation with my tutor as I was nearing the end of my PGCE several years ago, it was to review my portfolio before I handed it in for formal assessment, it was held in this little broom cupboard office at Greenwich Maritime but it was such an eloquent and sophisticated conversation as I remember as we hurried through the criteria, I remember thinking this is probably one of the most sophisticated conversations that will take place in all of London today, but just look at us both in this hot little broom cupboard office :)

I think my bottom line is that passing a degree really means something and then to qualify at postgraduate level is something of high value.

I made this image to show my feelings.