PME/Secondary Teaching Job Prospects

RoversRudie

Hi all,

Earlier this week I was offered a place on the PME in secondary teaching. However, I'm having doubts about actually taking up the offer. Basically, I've been hearing an awful lot about there being very few job opportunities in teaching and with my subjects in particular (History and English).

Now I know there's no guarantee of a job with any postgrad but the crux of the matter is that in order to do the course, given its hefty price of about 12,000, I'd more than likely have to take out a loan so I don't want to have incurred that cost for something that isn't going to put me in the way of work.

I just feel if your going to pay good money and work hard at two years for something, there needs to be a good chance of something at the end of it.

I'm just interested to know do people think the PME is worth it or would I be best off investing my energies elsewhere?

Also just on the hours/workload of the course, just how intense is it? Can anyone give me an idea of what your times'd be like? The reason I ask is not because I'm lazy but because I just wanted to know how possible it'd be to hold down some time part-time employment alongside it. If I was able to do so it'd obviously help to relieve a bit of the financial strain. I'm also led to believe that you

All help is much appreciated.

Rovers Rudie



PS. Mods feel free to move this to the main teaching courses question and answers thread

Hermia

If you want to be a teacher, do it! Might sound simple, but you never know what the future holds in the long run and hopefully with the new conditions, it will loosen the jobs front up a bit.
I am very lucky in that I've never been out of work since I did my pgde in 2008. I knew I had a job after interviewing in June most years, there was only one year where I had to put my cv around local schools. In that situation, the principal literally got my cv on his desk the very same day a teacher with my subjects had to decline the job offer in favour of doing a masters so that's how it works some times. Pure luck.
You won't have the opportunity to see what you think of the job unless you do the pme and although it's a lot of money to start off, hopefully it will pay off if you find a career that you love.
Best of luck with it all

sitstill

I did the PME or HDip as it was 8 years ago and it was very intense. I know some people worked part time during it but I didnt, I just did subbing in my placement school (this can't be done nowadays). I'm not sure if it's less intense now that it's a 2 year course.

Job prospects are poor to abysmal and I wouldn't want personally to be entering teaching with 12 grand of debt around my neck. It has become part time work supplemented by social welfare payments unless you are extremely lucky and get a full time job very soon after graduating. I am lucky to be full time but still do not have a permanent job after 8 years and one of my subjects is English as well.

If you have a passion for teaching, then go for it but be very aware of the struggle to earn a wage you'll be able to live on comfortably.

gaiscioch

RoversRudie wrote: »

Hi all,

Earlier this week I was offered a place on the PME in secondary teaching. However, I'm having doubts about actually taking up the offer. Basically, I've been hearing an awful lot about there being very few job opportunities in teaching and with my subjects in particular (History and English).

Now I know there's no guarantee of a job with any postgrad but the crux of the matter is that in order to do the course, given it's hefty price of about 12,000, I'd more than likely have to take out a loan so I don't want to have incurred that cost for something that isn't going to put me in the way of work.

I just feel if your going to pay good money and work hard at two years for something, there needs to be a good chance of something at the end of it.

I'm just interested to know do people think the PME is worth it or would I be best off investing my energies elsewhere?

Also just on the hours/workload of the course, just how intense is it? Can anyone give me an idea of what your times'd be like? The reason I ask is not because I'm lazy but because I just wanted to know how possible it'd be to hold down some time part-time employment alongside it. If I was able to do so it'd obviously help to relieve a bit of the financial strain.

A €12,000 fee for the teaching qualification should be criminal. It's a shameless money grab, and nothing else. It was €6,500k a couple of years ago. It's irrelevant that they've made it a two-year course: job prospects are still very bad and charging that much reeks of the universities fleecing students. For that sort of money the state should, and could, guarantee a teaching job by changing the entire recruitment system to something like that of An Garda Síochána where people are only taken into training for specific vacancies.

Other things you mention. All the drama queens will hype up the stress of the teaching qualification. Just ignore them, or try to. I didn't find it hard at all academically, just a bit annoying because there were loads of deadlines and bits and pieces to do. You could probably work at the same time, but I didn't because I was conscious that if you got a 1st class or, I think, higher 2.1 you got a better salary for each year of work. I owed about €20k by the time I started my first teaching job, though.

You're correct about your subjects - they are oversubscribed. I was in a similar boat but I knew before the teaching qualification that if I were to do it, I'd also have to go back and get the necessary degree credits to be able to teach other, more in demand, subjects. In short, if you're prepared to add more in demand subjects like Irish or Maths or certain languages by getting degree credits your employment prospects will be better. You really need to think about this. It is possible that eventually you could end up teaching English and History, but I'd say to get in the door of a school you'll need a more in demand subject.

I still love teaching, but increasingly there is an awful lot of ráiméis form-filling and posturing going on detracting from it. In short, under the "new reforms" you will be spending much more of your job covering yourself with paperwork and meetings, and less of it actually teaching. You'll be getting the teacher's salary, but increasingly the job satisfaction of a clerical officer. Even with the holidays, and the brilliant kids with their positivity and humour, teaching is losing its vocational and spiritual side under the weight of bureaucracy.

To be honest, if I were going to spend 2 years more in college to get a qualification, I'd look hard at what I'm interested in and where the jobs are, and of course what they are like (you don't want to be in some jobs no matter how much they pay). A friend of mine did a 1-year Supply Chain Management masters in UCD and is making more money than I'll ever make if I stay teaching. It sounds really interesting, too.

With the teaching job market, your two subjects being oversubscribed, and the continuous decline in teachers' conditions of employment in the past seven years, I very strongly suspect your 2 years and money could be more productively spent than doing a masters in teaching. You could even do teaching-like roles/corporate training within firms, which will pay more and, importantly, give you more opportunity of progression (although fewer holidays). You are possibly entitled to careers guidance advice for free from your alma mater if you've left in the past couple of years. It could be worth checking it out.

gaiscioch

sitstill wrote: »

If you have a passion for teaching, then go for it but be very aware of the struggle to earn a wage you'll be able to live on comfortably.

This is a particularly important point if you're going to want to buy a house in a decent area of Dublin. Check the teachers' salary scale and then check what you'll get on Daft.ie. Go in with your eyes open to the financial reality.

mirrorwall14

I have an 'In demand' subject (maths). I have a first in my degree, my DIP and my teaching practise. I have done epic amounts of extra curricular and even ran evening courses to bulk up my CV. I'm told that I do excellent interviews.

However I t has still taken 8 years to get a CID and tbh it was based more on sheer luck than anything else because a school I landed in was expanding. I could just have easily ended up in a school that wasn't. I also still had to get the union involved. This is the first summer I am not job hunting.

My staff has at least 50% part time teachers, a lot of them young. Look at the starting salary, half it or quarter it, take off the tax and then ask yourself if you could live on it. You are unlikely to get paid for the summer or holidays when starting out. How are you going to manage finances? Where in the country are you based? rent in Dublin or the surrounding areas will eat most of your part time salary. Are you prepared to sit in a staffroom days on end hoping for a subbing class which are more like hens teeth now? How will you feel when you have no class continuity? You are teaching someone else's students and have to follow their plans and patterns. Are you prepared to do a ton of evening and weekend extra curricular activity to try and be 'noticed' by management and hope that they will keep you? Have you a partner that can help you financially? And are you prepared to be able to take their help in a week you get no work but social welfare hasn't come through?

Teaching is wonderful but it's tough and the jobs market is rubbish. As I've said you could be spectacularly lucky and have work lined up like the first response but unfortunately it is far far more likely that you won't.

rainbowtrout

I'd agree with everything mirrorwall has posted there.

I'm back in college part time at the moment studying physics. I'm in with students who are doing a teacher training degree in science. My lab partner isdoing physics and maths as her options. To be fair there aren't huge numbers of people graduating in physics. I was having a chat with her about employment prospects a few weeks back in our lab. She told me she'd be fine because 'there are only 22 qualified physics teachers in the country' so she'd have no problem getting a job! :eek::eek::eek:

I asked her where she got that unbelievable statistic. She told me that 'it was definitely true, the woman delivering her pedagogy module told them'. I wasn't about to enter an argument with her, given the astounding lack of logic when considering it as a statement. I was able to name 6 people from my graduating class in college 15 years ago (from 30 of us) that are qualified and currently teaching physics. That wasn't including physics teachers I know in other schools. I could have probably given her a list of 22 myself, if I sat down for half an hour. 22 teachers couldn't account for the 7000 odd students doing the subject for LC. But there was no way she would believe me. I feel sorry for her in her naivety at the jobs situation really.

But I'm more annoyed at the bullshit being fed to prospective teachers in our third level institutions to get bums on very expensive seats.

gaiscioch

rainbowtrout wrote: »

But I'm more annoyed at the bullshit being fed to prospective teachers in our third level institutions to get bums on very expensive seats.

This, a million times. When I did the Dip, almost everybody who had a non-teaching subject in their degree - e.g. sociology, archaeology, politics, etc - chose the subject methodology for CSPE. It was packed with people who had paid c. €6500 for that year in the hope they'd get a job out of it. The lecturers stood up, and again and again they spoke about how the government was bringing in a new course entitled Politics and Society for LC and how, if they did the CSPE module they would be qualified to teach Politics & Society. It was galling to hear them delude people into believing what they needed to believe -particularly when you were conscious that CSPE was taught for a single class per week, and accordingly the principal in every school just gave it to whichever teacher had not a full timetable.

I see as recently as last October, Politics & Society was still not being taught in schools. Snake oil salesmen would have more integrity than the predacious people who run these teacher training courses in Irish universities.

evolving_doors

I know of a school who is undertaking the pilot for politics and society next year. Although ill believe it when it happens.

In saying that our own principal was asking around if anyone did politics in college aswell so maybe its gathering traction.

But ya we were promised loadsa jobs in Hdip aswell because of all the retiring teachers! Pity they didn't realise jobs would be split into 2 or 3 part time hours jobs (if yer lucky)..

Any new jobs announced or a change in the PTR and I reckon itll just bump up teachers on low hours already. Still a baby boom to come through to secondary though!

ciartastix

I came across this thread by chance. I completed my hdip in 2009. At the time I went around every school in the Kildare/Dublin/Meath area and handed out cvs personally.I thought I was in a relatively good position as I had done two years supervision/substitution prior to my dip in a challenging school so I had classroom experience. Unfortunately the most I ever got from it was an extended sick leave and some substitution. I also did a years home schooling (4hrs per week). Overall my options were extremely limited. For me personally I didn't want to live off substitution hours and constantly signing on and off social welfare. My cousin is now into her 9th year of no permanent position despite following jobs all over the country and furthering her studies. I chose instead to enter employment in a completely different sector. I would love to go back to teaching but with me and my partner looking to build a house and take out a mortgage this is not possible right now. I do however supplement my income with grinds and correcting mock and state examinations.

Rocking_roxy

I am currently doing the PME in NUI Galway and I totally love it. It is expensive but isnt every these days? I only have one subject, geography, so not good job prospects right now. But as someone else said, who knows what the future holds. And there are other opportuniities. the uk is always looking for irish teachers and you can travel further afield with a masters likes this. So many people are working in dubai etc if thats your thing.

The course is fairly intense, but managable. Most of my friends work at the wekeends, but I dont think id be able for that. Some people are and some arent. Depending on what college you choose the amount of teaching practice you do is different. im doing 13 weeks this year and 21 next year. but i know a girl in UL doing 7 this year and ten next year.

If you want any more info let me know