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jjbrien

I have been unemployed since early December. I am planning to go back to college in September. An agency just called me about a role that will only last 4 to 6 weeks. If he took that role would my ability to get back to education allowance be affected?

LegacyUser

It would affect your ability to claim BTEA in September as you must be receiving a payment for 9 months (234 days of unemployment) immediately before starting the course. The 4 to 6 week break in your claim would effectively reset your days of unemployment.

You are unfortunately in an anomalous situation where you know you would be unemployed again before your course begins so you might be better off in the long term not taking work now unless you could afford to complete a college course without any payment.

LJ82

well you need to be claiming a payment immediately before you start in college, you also need to be unemployed for 234 days.....I'm not 100% sure if a break in that unemployment affects your btea claim.
are you on jsb or jsa? If you've been on jsb since early December then that would be coming to an end soon, good luck with it, am sure somebody here will be able to give you more help

jjbrien

Im on jsa

abceire

You can have a break in your signing on, I asked all similar question, Citizens Information Centres are great help, and they don't mind what you tell them, they won't tell anyone like social welfare or tax man etc. Also you can ring the BTEA too, they are very helpful I've just been onto them 01 7043000 is the number.

LJ82

I found btea people in carrick on shannon super helpful as well

jjbrien

Thanks for the advise im going to also pop into the local clinic of my TD tonight

jjbrien

Bit disappointed with what the TD said. What he thinks is i would be silly to take a job that will last only 4 to 8 weeks and then be disallowed for BTEA. The system sucks its designed to keep you on it and not let you off it for a short period. Any one else have any opinions?

abceire

Same kinda happened to me, I didn't want to sit around all summer so took job, now I've the fun bit of asking to be let go, but I did warn employer I was looking to go to college and would need to finish up earlier then he'd advertised the job if I got college place, mate for sake of 4 week possibly don't bother, save the hassle I;ve to go thru.
But agreed it's annoying.

LJ82

Agreed, very frustrating....

abceire wrote: »

Same kinda happened to me, I didn't want to sit around all summer so took job, now I've the fun bit of asking to be let go, but I did warn employer I was looking to go to college and would need to finish up earlier then he'd advertised the job if I got college place, mate for sake of 4 week possibly don't bother, save the hassle I;ve to go thru.
But agreed it's annoying.

So I'm assuming you need to apply for jsa as soon as you finish work, do you think there is any likelihood that your local office will query why you left? I'm in a similar situation, my oh is working 3-4 days a week at the moment but will be going down to 1-2 days shortly, I'm concerned this might be an obstacle

pluto_322

Were you on JSB before claiming JSA from early December ... you really need to ask DSP Local Office the number of days of Unemployment registered on their system - 234 being the required number for Third Level Education ... if you were previously on JSB, linking might apply.

abceire

I'm fine with number of days.

abceire

LJ82 wrote: »

Agreed, very frustrating....


So I'm assuming you need to apply for jsa as soon as you finish work, do you think there is any likelihood that your local office will query why you left? I'm in a similar situation, my oh is working 3-4 days a week at the moment but will be going down to 1-2 days shortly, I'm concerned this might be an obstacle

They could query yes, hope they don't going to as employer could he do me a letter or something, not sure what he'll say as it's not ideal time for me to finish up. What can you do though.