Singapore Expats

EP Rejection

Moving to Singapore? Ask our regular expats in Singapore questions on relocation and their experience here. Ask about banking, employment pass, insurance, visa, work permit, citizenship or immigration issues.

Sponsored by:

Utrust Immigration
Post Reply
kurtrules1
Member
Member
Posts: 21
Joined: Fri, 26 May 2017 2:30 pm

EP Rejection

Post by kurtrules1 » Fri, 26 May 2017 2:43 pm

Good afternoon,

This is my first post here. My wife's ep was rejected this morning. She had been issued an EP twice in the past.

Her current salary is $5400, and she has 8 years of work ex. My little daughter is a dependent on my EP.

The rejection reason is - "One or more of your candidate's qualification are questiinable. Hence we are unable to grant a work pass."

The thing is she was issued an EP twice earlier on these very qualifications. She holds a post graduation degree. I tried to search over the forum, but could only find rejection threads which either contained reasons of low salary or the employer had not submitted to the job bank for 15 days.

The latter criteria does not apply to my wife's organization as it is a small establishment with less than 10 employees.

Please help me in this regard. Thanks in advance.

User avatar
Barnsley
Manager
Manager
Posts: 2319
Joined: Tue, 10 Jun 2008 5:22 pm
Location: Pasir Ris
Contact:

Re: EP Rejection

Post by Barnsley » Fri, 26 May 2017 2:53 pm

kurtrules1 wrote:Good afternoon,

This is my first post here. My wife's ep was rejected this morning. She had been issued an EP twice in the past.

Her current salary is $5400, and she has 8 years of work ex. My little daughter is a dependent on my EP.

The rejection reason is - "One or more of your candidate's qualification are questiinable. Hence we are unable to grant a work pass."

The thing is she was issued an EP twice earlier on these very qualifications. She holds a post graduation degree. I tried to search over the forum, but could only find rejection threads which either contained reasons of low salary or the employer had not submitted to the job bank for 15 days.

The latter criteria does not apply to my wife's organization as it is a small establishment with less than 10 employees.

Please help me in this regard. Thanks in advance.
The vetting/document checking process has been stepped up by all accounts , even for renewals.

As time goes by the ability to check things in greater detail improves and the Govt is able to go over folks qualifications with a finer tooth comb.

Seems like your wife is on the wrong side of this new ability.

Which of the qualifications do you suspect is the dodgy one?
Life is short, paddle harder!!

kurtrules1
Member
Member
Posts: 21
Joined: Fri, 26 May 2017 2:30 pm

Re: EP Rejection

Post by kurtrules1 » Fri, 26 May 2017 3:07 pm

There are no dodgy qualifications. She has perfectly legit MBA and a B.Com from accredited Indian universities.

That is why it is puzzling to us.

User avatar
ecureilx
Immortal
Immortal
Posts: 9817
Joined: Fri, 20 Aug 2010 5:18 pm

Re: EP Rejection

Post by ecureilx » Fri, 26 May 2017 8:18 pm

kurtrules1 wrote:There are no dodgy qualifications. She has perfectly legit MBA and a B.Com from accredited Indian universities.

That is why it is puzzling to us.
Something in between is enough for MOM to get suspicious. Maybe her HSC ?

Can't fight the Machine
kurtrules1 wrote: The rejection reason is - "One or more of your candidate's qualification are questiinable. Hence we are unable to grant a work pass."
.
MOM said that ? Ouch.

kurtrules1
Member
Member
Posts: 21
Joined: Fri, 26 May 2017 2:30 pm

Re: EP Rejection

Post by kurtrules1 » Fri, 26 May 2017 9:02 pm

Yup, they did!

She will ask her employer to file the appeal with attaching the original degree scans of both her graduate and post-graduate degree certificates as well as her school leaving certificates (if attaching files is possible whilst appealing). But then again, their ground their rules! I was hoping to get a reason or a bit more information on which degree or what credential they found suspicious so that we can proceed forward to finding a resolution. That single statement in her rejection letter is not helping.

User avatar
Wd40
Director
Director
Posts: 4592
Joined: Tue, 04 Dec 2012 10:53 am
Answers: 1
Location: SIndiapore

Re: EP Rejection

Post by Wd40 » Sat, 27 May 2017 11:28 am

I think there is nothing much you can do. If your wife has to work, you will have to choose another country.

Sent from my Redmi Note 4 using Tapatalk

kurtrules1
Member
Member
Posts: 21
Joined: Fri, 26 May 2017 2:30 pm

Re: EP Rejection

Post by kurtrules1 » Sat, 27 May 2017 3:08 pm

I understand. Waiting for the result of the appeal. I hope we''ll have a better understanding of what went wrong.

User avatar
sundaymorningstaple
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 40389
Joined: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 1:26 pm
Answers: 21
Location: Retired on the Little Red Dot

Re: EP Rejection

Post by sundaymorningstaple » Sat, 27 May 2017 7:35 pm

Were any of her credentials gained via distance learning? e.g., distance learning degrees? either B.Sc/B.A or Masters? This is one item that is often overlooked and frowned on by MOM under the current tightening up of vetting. The other is if the degrees are not directly related to the type of job being done. I've lost quite a few S pass holders in the past 3 years due to my staff (some of whom had worked with me for 5 or 6 years who have found themselves out of a job because they were in a Technicians position but not holding a technical degree. Even though they had a number of years experience, the new criteria caused them to be bounced because of the changed criteria.
SOME PEOPLE TRY TO TURN BACK THEIR ODOMETERS. NOT ME. I WANT PEOPLE TO KNOW WHY I LOOK THIS WAY. I'VE TRAVELED A LONG WAY, AND SOME OF THE ROADS WEREN'T PAVED. ~ Will Rogers

kurtrules1
Member
Member
Posts: 21
Joined: Fri, 26 May 2017 2:30 pm

Re: EP Rejection

Post by kurtrules1 » Sat, 27 May 2017 7:46 pm

No. Her education after schooling was all full time. 3 years batchelors and 2 years full time post graduation. Even the work she is doing relates to her specialization picked up in her post graduation.

Her entire experience is in the same field of work.

One important thing to point out - Her salary is lower than what she should have been getting at her exeprience level, but she was finding it hard to get a full time employment and was at home as my dependent for a year, till she got her job in 2015. In fact in her first employment she was getting paid higher than what she is getting paid now. Unfortunately her unit shut down and she was laid off.

So I could have understood if they stated salary as the reason or if there was a mismatch of her job profile to her qualification but that is not the case. A statement like "Questionable qualification" came as a surprise.

Edit - I am not sure if re-applying for an EP or an S Pass would make any difference since her qualifications would remain the same. Another option is the LOC, but that I fear would outrightly be rejected as she qualifies for an EP.

User avatar
sundaymorningstaple
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 40389
Joined: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 1:26 pm
Answers: 21
Location: Retired on the Little Red Dot

Re: EP Rejection

Post by sundaymorningstaple » Sat, 27 May 2017 8:18 pm

Does she still have her transcripts from school? This might help. Another problems is the vetting teams in her home country may have found it hard if the schools were not computerized at the time she graduated. They may be having problems getting verification from the schools themselves. I doubt that this is so, but it was a common problem in Myanmar and in some other S.E. Asian nations.

If her salary in lower than what she was making on her first EP that may also be a contributing factor even if the amount is still above the threshold for the EP. With her additional years of experience the salary should be commensurate with the additional experience. But as you stated, the reasons given seem to lead back somewhere to her basic academic qualifications. Strange one, this!
SOME PEOPLE TRY TO TURN BACK THEIR ODOMETERS. NOT ME. I WANT PEOPLE TO KNOW WHY I LOOK THIS WAY. I'VE TRAVELED A LONG WAY, AND SOME OF THE ROADS WEREN'T PAVED. ~ Will Rogers

kurtrules1
Member
Member
Posts: 21
Joined: Fri, 26 May 2017 2:30 pm

Re: EP Rejection

Post by kurtrules1 » Sat, 27 May 2017 8:50 pm

Yes, she does have her marksheets from school, but I donot forsee that to be a problem, primarily because we got all our educational credentials verified from World Education Services, an independent and leading credential vetting firm - as a requirement for applying a PR to a particular country, and those folks raised no red flags. The copies of the transcripts and the degree was sent directly from the university concerned both for my wife and I.

I may be contemplating, but I do believe that there may be a remote possibility where the concerned MOM official made an error of judgement OR perhaps a simple clerical error which rendered her application as rejected. Do you think that may be the case and it might be resolved post submission of an appeal ?

x9200
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 10073
Joined: Mon, 07 Sep 2009 4:06 pm
Location: Singapore

Re: EP Rejection

Post by x9200 » Sat, 27 May 2017 8:52 pm

kurtrules1 wrote:There are no dodgy qualifications. She has perfectly legit MBA and a B.Com from accredited Indian universities.

That is why it is puzzling to us.
I think the problem with MBAs is that it became almost synonymous to a dodgy degree - like a mass production and acquirable by anyone, so if the granting body is not well recognized, meaning by the SG authorities I would not be surprised, they might say what they have said in the rejection letter.

kurtrules1
Member
Member
Posts: 21
Joined: Fri, 26 May 2017 2:30 pm

Re: EP Rejection

Post by kurtrules1 » Sat, 27 May 2017 9:02 pm

Well if that is the case, I hope they would be more transparent in providing that information after an appeal. Atleast we will get to know why and thereafter take the logical steps required. A blatant statement like "Questionable qualification" stems a lot of theories. They are well within their right to reject an application but raising doubt without reason on an individual's legitimately obtained education, is in my opinion, purely absurd. That too, not on applying but on renewing.

kurtrules1
Member
Member
Posts: 21
Joined: Fri, 26 May 2017 2:30 pm

Re: EP Rejection

Post by kurtrules1 » Sat, 27 May 2017 9:11 pm

Another thing to add - The SAT tool has both her universities as recognized. We checked that last night. The result was she is eligible to apply for renewal.

It gets all the more muddled :)

x9200
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 10073
Joined: Mon, 07 Sep 2009 4:06 pm
Location: Singapore

Re: EP Rejection

Post by x9200 » Sat, 27 May 2017 9:19 pm

Unfortunately this is how they work - providing statements as vague as possible. Looks like at one point they figured out the transparency only encourages many too many to try to game the system.

Nb. ff the SAT tools recognizes the institutions, I would try to make the the appeal case based on that.

Post Reply
  • Similar Topics
    Replies
    Views
    Last post

Return to “Relocating, Moving to Singapore”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 5 guests