I took a GCSE photography course with Greenwich Community College (now part of Woolwich College) between September 1996 and May 1997, for which I was awarded a grade 'A'. I requested that the certificate be sent to my home address. In January 1998 I left England to work in Japan, under the impression that my certificate would be waiting for me on my return, my home address at the time is my grandmother's home.

On arriving back in England for a visit this April (1999) I was surprised to find the certificate hadn't been delivered. I contacted the College and received a reply informing me that I needed to pay a charge of 11 pounds 40 for a "replacement" certificate. This was of course totally unacceptable since I paid my tuition, examination and certification fees in full whilst studying with the College. In any case I was not asking for a replacement certificate, I was, rightfully, requesting the one certificate for which I had paid. I replied to this effect (in early May) and had a reply from the accreditation officer "Kay Johnstone" dated 19th July forwarded to me in Japan by my parents.

It took Ms Johnstone over two months to prepare this unhelpful reply which restated that I had to pay a fee to obtain my certificate and suggested that I apply to the Post Office for compensation. Having previously had occasion to claim against the Post Office for lost mail it has always been my experience that the onus for making the claim lies with the sender in such instances since the Post Office requires details of where, when and by what means the item was sent. Obviously the intended recipient is not usually aware of these details and I most certainly was not. Ms Johnstone's letter was written on headed paper showing the name of the college Principal as Dr Terry Powley. I was later informed that Dr Powley left the college in October 1998!

As a result of the above I contacted my Member of Parliament, Roger Gale, to ask his assistance. Mr Gale kindly contacted the college on my behalf and within a few weeks I received a copy of a reply sent to Mr Gale by a "Mrs S. Payne", the head of administration. In this letter, dated 20th August, Mrs Payne apologised for the confusion over the responsibility for instigating a search and agreed to provide me with a certificate at no cost to myself.

Following receipt of this letter I wrote to Mrs Payne by e-mail to establish when my certificate would be delivered and to request an explanation for the college's inefficient handling of my enquiry. It took two further e-mails to the College's Principal, Dr Pine, before I finally received confirmation, dated 8th October, that my certificate had been delivered to my home address in England.

The explanation received from Mrs Payne was, however, far from satisfactory. Mrs Payne was unable to explain why my enquiry took so long to deal with apart from offering the feeble excuse that the merger of Greenwich Community College with Woolwich College took "a great deal of time and effort" from the college's staff. Surely a merger between two organisations does not bring their day-to-day administration to a halt. Even if this were the case the body responsible for bringing about the merger should have provided temporary staff to ease the workload during this period.

She "strongly refuted" my suggestion that part-time students received inferior treatment from the college. If her refutation is correct I can only only draw the conclusion that the college treats ALL its students in a similarly shabby manner.

Mrs Payne claimed that the college asked me for payment because the only time they had had to apply to the board for replacement certificates for other students was when they had been mislaid by the recipient. This explanation simply does not add up since I twice informed the college quite clearly that my certificate had not been delivered in the first place.

She also refuted my assertion that the only reason my complaint was due to the intervention of my MP, claiming that had I written to the Principal of the institution I would have received a similar response. This is a lie. I twice wrote to the Principal with the results outlined above.

Mrs Payne apologised for the delay in replying to my August e-mail citing the fact that she is not connected to e-mail. This is despite the fact that her reply to Mr Gale MP shows an e-mail address on the letter-heading.

As a result of my experiences in dealing with this institution I can only advise those contemplating studying with Greenwich Community College or Woolwich College to look elsewhere.