TheBanyanTree: Some week

[JMoney]

The youngest boy came home from his school excursion to Adelaide on Sunday
afternoon.  By Monday afternoon he was complaining of headache, stiff neck
and a sore throat.  On Tuesday morning, when I went in to check on him, I
found him burning up with fever.

That was a soul freezing moment.  Meningococcal septicaemia came to mind as
one possible cause of such symptoms so I had to whip the sheets back and
check his skin for the rash which, thankfully, wasn't there.

A couple of hours later my eldest son rang.  He was distraught.  Because of
some surreal combination of incomprehensible factors he has been denied
Austudy assistance to get his teaching qualification.  His dream had become
dust and ashes and his spirits were down where dust and ashes fall when
there is nothing to stop them falling.

I couldn't understand what he was telling me about the reasons he'd been
given for his application being rejected; it was something about having
already used up his allowable time.  I got on to the web and had a look at
the relevant legislation.  That says you're allowed to do one course at each
of four levels; D, C, B and A.  B is an undergraduate Bachelor degree course
and A is a postgraduate Bachelor degree course or a graduate or postgraduate
diploma course.  Since the course he'd enrolled in requires a Bachelor
degree for entry I figured it must be an A level course and there should be
no problem with Austudy.

So I rang the university and, after a mild contretemps with a receptionist
who seems to have thought me aggressively unmanageable for interrupting her
when she was interrupting me and telling her to listen to me when she wanted
me to listen to her, was put through to the manager of student
administration.  This woman told me that she knew nothing about course
levels for Austudy purposes but that the course, though named the Graduate
Bachelor of Education, is an undergraduate degree because students study
undergraduate education subjects.

Now a postgraduate diploma course is one undertaken by someone with a
Bachelor degree in the same discipline.  A graduate diploma course is one
undertaken by someone with a Bachelor degree in some other discipline.  Why
would anyone do two Bachelor degrees in the same subject - one undergraduate
and one postgraduate?  It's a ridiculously ludicrous thought.  If you're
continuing on in the same subject you'll do a postgrad certificate or
diploma or a Masters.  Other universities here describe postgraduate
Bachelor degree courses as graduate entry Bachelor degree programs.   So
obviously the fact that the subjects are at undergraduate level is of no
importance.  The important thing is that you have to have a Bachelor degree
to get in.  But I was talking to a brick wall.  The woman was absolutely
certain that she was right because, she asserted, no one else had ever been
refused Austudy to take the course.  Very soon I learned of an even stranger
twist to the story that would make her assertion believable even if it
doesn't make her managerial skills more praiseworthy.

When Christian started his undergraduate studies he did so as a candidate
for a Bachelor of Arts degree.  Because he was doing best at social science
subjects (and quite badly at standard Arts subjects) he transferred his
candidature to a Bachelor of Social Science degree after two years.  In the
end he was awarded his degree on the basis of credit points earned during
the whole of that time, including the two years as a BA candidate.  But
someone has decided that his BA years count as a separate course not
associated with gaining the prerequisite qualifications for entry to the
Graduate Bachelor of Education program.

The bestowers of Social Security largesse have been told by the university
that the course is a B level program.  Even if it was incorrectly classified
there is still a loophole available for getting Austudy in that if you want
to do two courses at the same level and the first is the prerequisite for
the second you still qualify.  But if you've done another course at the same
level that isn't a prerequisite then your allowable time is reduced by
however long the non-prerequisite course took.  In Christian's case the two
years he studied for his BA are, for some mysterious reason, considered to
be separate from his final award and therefore cancel out the eighteen
months it would take him to get the Graduate BE.

It's unbelievable to me, but that's what has happened.  There are two
avenues available by which he could qualify for assistance to get this
qualification and get out of long term unemployment and poverty.  Both have
been denied to him because administrators have made stupid mistakes, first
by incorrectly classifying the course he wants to do now and second by
confusing a transfer from one degree to another with doing two separate
courses.

What could I do?  I wrote to the Vice Chancellor outlining chapter and verse
of the failures of his staff and stating that I would love to see someone
held accountable.  The man is interstate but his EO appreciates my "patience
at this time."

People who take some notice of things I post here might recall that recently
I expressed some happiness about getting a part-time job.  It hasn't worked
out as well as I hoped.  In fact it's so part-time as to be non-existent.
So naturally I was interested, a week or so ago, when a person from a large
employer organisation up here rang me to ask if I would meet with them to
discuss their web site.  It turned out that some buffoon had advised them
that a university student would be able to fix up the terminally horrible
site they already had.  Even after the most preliminary discussion I could
not agree with that so I recommended that they look into other possibilities
before making a final decision.  Indeed, I referred them to my putative
employer, for no other reason than that I believe they have the expertise
that these people require for the work they want done, and promised not to
involve myself in any discussions that might arise unless they asked me to.

On Tuesday afternoon, late, the call came.  They wanted to arrange a meeting
with my apparent employer.  Would I organise it?  Of course.  For sure.  And
I did.  I contacted the boss, got back to the client and it was arranged for
two o'clock on Thursday afternoon.  On Wednesday I completed work on a new
design for the site header on the basis of what I'd been told at the earlier
meeting.

So on Thursday afternoon at 1.50pm I arrived and briefed the more work laden
members of staff.  Two pm came and went.  At 2.20 the clients rang to say
they were running late.  At 2.45 they rang to say that they were still
coming.  At 3.15 they rang to say that they might be there in half an hour
or, if not, they would be there on Friday morning.  Friday mornings are no
good for me now.  I have another arrangement for that time, helping out a
friend who has a picture framing business.  Starting to feel tired and
unwell, I went home.

By Thursday evening the youngest son's illness had resolved into a bad cold.
His nose was not so much running as streaming but we figured that he was
well enough to go back to school the next day.  I had a pain in my back that
made me wonder whether I'd done something to pull a muscle and was so
uncomfortable that by 8.30 I decided that going to bed was my best option.

On Friday morning I awoke covered in sweat, my head pounding.  I was barely
able to move because of the pain in my hips and in the muscles that work
them.  My belly hurt.  My skin hurt.  My arms hurt.  My back hurt.  I spent
most of the day in bed trying to find a comfortable position and to sleep it
off.  Ordinarily I can't sleep during the day but when I'm ill it's easy and
a wonderful anodyne.

And now it's Saturday evening.  I still hurt but I have no cold, not even
the whisper of one.  I've also had no message from anyone at my supposed
workplace as to whether the meeting went ahead on either Thursday afternoon
or Friday morning or whether it never happened at all.  Looking at my inbox
and the message from the Vice Chancellor's EO I wonder how long my patience
concerning that matter might be expected to last.  Really, I have no
patience.  All I can think of is that this is not how things are supposed to
be.  Illness can strike anyone at any time and there's precious little that
can be done about it, but human stupidity and carelessness are entirely
another thing.

Janice