In a nutshell:

My contract says that I must repay my exam/course fees if:
“my employment is terminated prior to the completion of my training as a certified student”

I passed my finals this time and am just completing my diary (but it has gaps). My employer have just said I owe them more money than I have in fees as I am leaving. I think my training is finished as I have done all my exams, they presumably think that I still need my diary before I am finished.

However, at every employee progress meeting I have had I have stated that I need further experience for my diary and they have said “yes, that will be dealt with in the coming months”. I have not been given the chance to do any of the work that I need, therefore I would contest that they cannot say that I can’t leave until I have received experience in areas they are passively preventing me from working in.

Otherwise all they would need do would be train a student from scratch, then refuse to let them gain experience to complete the diary, voila the student leaves for an employer which WILL give the experience and the current employer receives the money back!

To add insult to injury I was also on reduced pay (alas I was only told this verbally) due to my training contract, so have in fact already ‘paid’ some of the fees.

Ok, that was partly a vent (I appologise for that part) but I’d like your opinions as to whether I am being a spoilt brat expecting free training or whether they are being bitter and trying to pull a fast one.
Fred