Career Breaks and Pay

selwyn

Hi. I'm sure this topic came up heaps of times in the past but I thought I'd just throw it out there again to get the exact info I need.
Long story short, I'm a qualified Secondary School teacher with a permanent position and I've been granted a career break to complete a 2 year Masters in Technology Education in UL in September.
My question is, are there any sort financial schemes I can avail of at all? Even social welfare?
The way I see it is I'm going to have to fork out nearly 10K for the fees alone, I'll have no income, I'll have to move down to Limerick and rent...oh and I have to eat, run a car etc as well!
I'm guessing that civil servant career break scheme whereby they get €12,500 a year doesn't extend to teachers?

Cheers,
Terry

teacherhead

selwyn wrote: »

Hi. I'm sure this topic came up heaps of times in the past but I thought I'd just throw it out there again to get the exact info I need.
Long story short, I'm a qualified Secondary School teacher with a permanent position and I've been granted a career break to complete a 2 year Masters in Technology Education in UL in September.
My question is, are there any sort financial schemes I can avail of at all? Even social welfare?
The way I see it is I'm going to have to fork out nearly 10K for the fees alone, I'll have no income, I'll have to move down to Limerick and rent...oh and I have to eat, run a car etc as well!
I'm guessing that civil servant career break scheme whereby they get €12,500 a year doesn't extend to teachers?

Cheers,
Terry

no idea about salary but look at the teacher fee refund scheme or tax relief on your fees. You're not supposed to do both 😉

selwyn

Hi. Thanks for replying. Yes I'm aware of the reclaiming of fees schemes alright. I will be taking full advantage of one of them when I complete my Masters.

smallgarden

You can apply for both but if you get tax back then you have to declare it when looking for fee refund. A key thing with fee refund scheme is that you must have a years contract after completing the course, maternity cover etc wouldn't be enough.

TheDriver

plus they assume you will be claiming back tax anyways.

I suppose the issue is that you want to leave your work temporarily and be paid to do your course which unfortunately is not something the dept supports unlike maybe some private industries. However there are a lot of PT courses which teachers undertake and leave provisions are in place for that.

RH149

I suppose if there was an opportunity to be paid to take a break for two years and get re energised, go to college and then have a guaranteed job to come back to we'd all be doing it...in fact we'd be working for Carlsberg!


I imagine anyone who does what you're doing has either (a) saved for several years to finance the two years off (how...on a teachers salary?) (b)has another source of income, a partner or family who can support them or has won the Lotto! (c) will be working part time/evenings while doing the Masters, and I don't think you are are allowed sub in schools while on Career Break but not sure about that ( a friend worked in Bruce College years ago while on Career Break but am sure there are different rules for Grind Schools).


Best of luck with your course-I envy you !!

selwyn

This was a decision that I made in the last 2 months so I have had no saving time! No partner to bank roll me either!
I don't see how we can be expected to live on nothing if I want to take a career break to improve myself professionally. How a civil servant can get €12,500 a year for every year of a career break they take and public servants can't is beyond me.

donegal11

selwyn wrote: »

This was a decision that I made in the last 2 months so I have had no saving time! No partner to bank roll me either!
I don't see how we can be expected to live on nothing if I want to take a career break to improve myself professionally. How a civil servant can get €12,500 a year for every year of a career break they take and public servants can't is beyond me.

As a teacher someone will have to take over your classes which costs money, those civil servants were targeted in areas of over staffing and weren't replaced.

selwyn wrote: »

Hi. I'm sure this topic came up heaps of times in the past but I thought I'd just throw it out there again to get the exact info I need.
Long story short, I'm a qualified Secondary School teacher with a permanent position and I've been granted a career break to complete a 2 year Masters in Technology Education in UL in September.
My question is, are there any sort financial schemes I can avail of at all? Even social welfare?
The way I see it is I'm going to have to fork out nearly 10K for the fees alone, I'll have no income, I'll have to move down to Limerick and rent...oh and I have to eat, run a car etc as well!
I'm guessing that civil servant career break scheme whereby they get €12,500 a year doesn't extend to teachers?

Cheers,
Terry

Humor me but if you are ALREADY QUALIFIED why are you doing a Masters in Technology Education, you do know that it just a rebadged higher diploma/PGDE with extended teaching practice? From what your telling me you want leave a paid job to redo an extended version of a qualification you already have and in doing so essentially work for nothing. It sounds an absolutely crazy idea.

selwyn

selwyn wrote: »

How a civil servant can get €12,500 a year for every year of a career break they take and public servants can't is beyond me.

I'm not hugely surprised it's beyond you, because civil servants can't.

There was a once-off scheme nearly five years ago that allowed civil servants to exit for three years and be paid one-third of salary up to a limit of €12,500 a year. So it wasn't for "every year of a career break they take". There are plenty of civil servants on longer career breaks, but they don't get any money for any of the time they're away.

The scheme was devised because the Government wanted to cut the pay bill for the civil service regardless of how it was done. The people who left weren't replaced. But it wouldn't - couldn't - make sense to pay teachers to take off from the job while at the same time recruiting other teachers to replace them. Last year Brendan Howlin stated that he had no plans to reintroduce that scheme for civil servants.

As it happens, I do see how you can be expected to "live on nothing" if you want to take a career break to improve yourself professionally. If you want to ratchet up your education then avail of the fee refund scheme and/or tax relief like most people do. I did my post-graduate education in my own time while holding down a full-time job. I got a refund of fees and a few days of study leave, and I was glad of those. I certainly wouldn't have expected my employer to pay for my time off to do a full-time course as well. You're the one who wants this, so you should take responsibility for getting it. The Irish taxpayer doesn't owe you - or me - any handouts.

selwyn

Jaysis I'm sorry I asked now.

Well donegal11, If you really need to know the rationale behind my decision then here goes. In 2007 I completed a PGDE which qualified me to teach Maths/Physics/ICT but the last few years I have been teaching Technology, Technical Graphics and Design & Communication Grahpics, given my Engineering background. I love teaching these subjects. I'm not overly keen on teaching the subjects that I'm qualified to teach. My principal has been getting on to me recently saying that she'll have to put me back teaching Maths/Physics as I'm not qualified to teach the subjects I am currently teaching. So I'm finally bit the bullet and applied to do this Masters. I'm doing it purely for the love of teaching technology subjects. Plus, I want to move closer to home in the future and having the ability of teaching up to 10 subjects would be quite attractive to a principal. Hope that's OK with you...?

professore

Why not do a part time masters and continue teaching? This is how you would have to do it if you were working in an engineering or technical job outside of teaching. In fact you would be continually training. You would also save a fortune compared to all the costs you will have for the 2 years you are not teaching.

Mr Pseudonym

selwyn wrote: »

Jaysis I'm sorry I asked now.

Well donegal11, If you really need to know the rationale behind my decision then here goes. In 2007 I completed a PGDE which qualified me to teach Maths/Physics/ICT but the last few years I have been teaching Technology, Technical Graphics and Design & Communication Grahpics, given my Engineering background. I love teaching these subjects. I'm not overly keen on teaching the subjects that I'm qualified to teach. My principal has been getting on to me recently saying that she'll have to put me back teaching Maths/Physics as I'm not qualified to teach the subjects I am currently teaching. So I'm finally bit the bullet and applied to do this Masters. I'm doing it purely for the love of teaching technology subjects. Plus, I want to move closer to home in the future and having the ability of teaching up to 10 subjects would be quite attractive to a principal. Hope that's OK with you...?

Whatever about Technology, I'm surprised you're allowed to teach DCG. Surely there's an easier way of getting accredited than a two-year full-time course, though?

donegal11

selwyn wrote: »

Jaysis I'm sorry I asked now.

Well donegal11, If you really need to know the rationale behind my decision then here goes. In 2007 I completed a PGDE which qualified me to teach Maths/Physics/ICT but the last few years I have been teaching Technology, Technical Graphics and Design & Communication Grahpics, given my Engineering background. I love teaching these subjects. I'm not overly keen on teaching the subjects that I'm qualified to teach. My principal has been getting on to me recently saying that she'll have to put me back teaching Maths/Physics as I'm not qualified to teach the subjects I am currently teaching. So I'm finally bit the bullet and applied to do this Masters. I'm doing it purely for the love of teaching technology subjects. Plus, I want to move closer to home in the future and having the ability of teaching up to 10 subjects would be quite attractive to a principal. Hope that's OK with you...?

I could be wrong but it's your undergraduate degree that is accessed to make you qualified in a subject not the methodologies on the teaching course. You should really ask the teaching council what's your shortfall is because this course potentially won't make you any more qualified than before

shenanagans

you will need the methodologies for 1/1/2017 due to the changes the TC are introducing.

selwyn

professore: Unfortunately this cannot be done part time. As someone once said, UL are the gate keepers to technology subject teaching in Ireland. They are the only institute that you can qualify to teach these subjects. There is a place in Letterfrack (GMIT) of all places that qualifies students to teach Technology and DCG but it's a continuation of a furniture design degree that they run. My background is in Engineering so I wouldn't get in.

Mr Pseudonym: As mentioned above. UL are the gatekeepers of technology teaching. They say yes or no as to who is suitable for gain entry to this Masters. As long as the candidate completes this programme, the teaching council will deem them suitable/qualified to teach the technology subjects. It's not based on what your original degree subjects are. Do you get me? To say that I'm not recognised to teach Engineering/Applied Maths/Technology when I have a degree in Mechanical Engineering is preposterous. But yet I'm recognised to teach Physics?! That's the teaching council for you I'm afraid...

donegal11: I could submit an application to the teaching council and see where I fall short. I could possibly make up whatever credits are needed for Technology/Engineering but the DCG, I wouldn't be able to make up as Limerick are the only institute in the country teaching degree level drawing. Their undergraduate degree is not part time. Trust me, I've looked into all of this!

Essentially, I chose the wrong teaching Post Grad to complete and I'm paying for it now. I never actually knew about the Technology Hdip in Limerick at the time as I thought I was limited, like donegal11 said, to the subjects the teaching council recognised my degree for. It's a mess, I know but DCG, Technical Graphics and Technology are the subjects I really want to teach and unfortunately the Masters in UL seems to be the only way to do it.

solerina

shenanagans wrote: »

you will need the methodologies for 1/1/2017 due to the changes the TC are introducing.

Oh god...what now ?? They are enough of a hassle for people already !!

shenanagans

I'm not fully up on all the changes coming in but I know they are requiring that you study the methodologies of each of your subjects by 2017. At the moment I think the methodologies is only required for CSPE.

teacherhead

Its not that much to ask I think. Surely the subject pedagogy is the most important part of the dip.

Mardy Bum

teacherhead wrote: »

Its not that much to ask I think. Surely the subject pedagogy is the most important part of the dip.

Those delivering the method modules will need to learn how to deliver them properly. They are not up to much.

rainbowtrout

Mardy Bum wrote: »

Those delivering the method modules will need to learn how to deliver them properly. They are not up to much.

A bit of a sweeping generalisation? Surely that statement can't cover every person who has delivered pedagogy modules in every university in the country?

Mardy Bum

rainbowtrout wrote: »

A bit of a sweeping generalisation? Surely that statement can't cover every person who has delivered pedagogy modules in every university in the country?

Well from talking to people in 3 of the NUIs many of the methods classes were of no real use.