BTEA claim for "PT Education Option" for Masters and retaining Job Seekers Benefit

Bushg65

Hi all

Recently made redundant and I am on Job Seekers Benefit since end of Feb. I am thinking of doing a postgrad course ( MBS in DCU over 2 years which only involves 2 weekdays per month for six months each year i.e. end Sept to End March) which essentially means I will still be able to look for full time work as I would only need 12 days holidays to cover the course each year. Even getting onto this Postgrad would help my employment prospects.

I see from the Welfare.ie website that it is possible to claim for a BTEA type allowance whereby you still get paid your JS Benefit whilst doing a part time course as you are still available for full time work.......

"The Part-Time Education option was introduced to enable unemployed persons to attend part-time day/evening courses of education or training and retain their Jobseekers Allowance or Jobseekers Benefit provided that they continue to satisfy the conditions of being available for and genuinely seeking employment on an on-going basis. The purpose of this option is to enhance the employability prospects of participants."

I am just wondering if anyone can offer some advice on the following:

• if anyone has managed to claim this Part Time Option- BTEA allowance i.e. where they keep their JS Benefit whilst doing a part time Postgrad Masters and is there a lot of red tape attached to it as it looks like the BTE1 form and the deciding officer's opinion maybe very subjective.
• as I am married and have 4 kids my JS Benefit is higher than the standard single allowance and so would I be entitled to claim the full amount of my current payment if I was approved.
• as I am only entitled to cliam JS benefit for 1 year what are my options at end of Feb 2010 when the year is up.
• Are there any other funding options I could look at?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

BushG65

gollem_1975

this came up on a thread a few days ago.

1) there is a website you can check for these matters called www.studentfinance.ie

2) the back to education allowance doesn't apply to level 9 courses ( i.e. masters )

Milester1

I applied to do my Masters over a year ago and was very pleased to find out that I was accepted to the course. I was working at the time and was actually let go last April. The course is ran form 4 to 9.30pm on a Monday and Tuesday. To my dismay social welfare said that I must be available for full time work and because the course is run from 4pm for two days then I am unavailable for 2 hours of the (39) week for full time work. With this in mind I wrote to the college and requested that if they could furnish a letter which would allow me to start the course from 5pm which would allow in the event that I get full time work to fulfil these hours. The social welfare still wont allow me as it is technically a 'full time' course. The course is designed to allow full time employees underake a Masters.

Please give me some advice if you can as it seems completely ridiclous!

I am trying to make myself more attractable to Employers and Social Welfare wont allow me.

They have no problem paying someone for thirty years on long term benefit but when a guy becomes unemployed for the first time and wants to do essentially a evening/night time course and make him more employable, they want to cut his job seekers benefit