Qualifications to become secondary school teacher

Irishder

Hi,
My wife graduated from WIT with a BENG in Electronic Engineering, approx 15 years ago. She is looking at returning to the workplace and secondary school teaching is an area she has been interested in.

She would ideally like to teach maths (She has been giving grinds in this for years.)

Would her primary degree allow this, and what is the best part time/distant learning course to obtain her masters?


Thanks very much

sullivlo

Irishder wrote: »

Hi,
My wife graduated from WIT with a BENG in Electronic Engineering, approx 15 years ago. She is looking at returning to the workplace and secondary school teaching is an area she has been interested in.

She would ideally like to teach maths (She has been giving grinds in this for years.)

Would her primary degree allow this, and what is the best part time/distant learning course to obtain her masters?


Thanks very much

She would need to check with the teaching Council as to what the degree would qualify her to teach. Their requirements are challenging :rolleyes: for example - I have a PhD that they don’t recognise.

As for distance PME - the only course I am aware of is Hibernia.

Irishder

Is there a list anywhere of qualifying courses?

Treppen

She needs to get her degree assessed by the teaching council to say what subjects she is allowed to teach.
Word of warning... They're not favourable towards engineers with allowing maths (check back the many previous threads of engineers refused maths).

Before wasting years of her life and short term contracts ( if they're lucky) tell her to look into free springboard courses which give pathways to proper paying jobs.

Irishder

Treppen wrote: »

She needs to get her degree assessed by the teaching council to say what subjects she is allowed to teach.
Word of warning... They're not favourable towards engineers with allowing maths (check back the many previous threads of engineers refused maths).

Before wasting years of her life and short term contracts ( if they're lucky) tell her to look into free springboard courses which give pathways to proper paying jobs.

Thanks its just a shame. She is bit of a maths wizard and has a real love of teaching people and bringing them on .

Not sure why the government make it hard for people to enter this profession later on in life.

We will have a look at the springboard courses, thanks

Chancer3001

Friend of mine tried to get from medicine to teaching.

10 years later he's on 10x my salary at least.

Tell your friend not to panic. Teaching is not the only way of educating people

daymobrew

A friend of mine has a BEng in Electronics from early 90s and has lots of industry experience since then. He became a secondary school teacher (probably maths) about 6 years ago.
I do remember that he had to talk with his college to get info to provide to the teaching council (the college course was maths heavy). I think he did some Open University stuff to fill the gaps.

If you have any issues you can PM me and I'll pass on questions to my friend (I normally promote open, public discussions but I know he likes to be offline as much as possible).

Treppen

daymobrew wrote: »

A friend of mine has a BEng in Electronics from early 90s and has lots of industry experience since then. He became a secondary school teacher (probably maths) about 6 years ago.
I do remember that he had to talk with his college to get info to provide to the teaching council (the college course was maths heavy). I think he did some Open University stuff to fill the gaps.

If you have any issues you can PM me and I'll pass on questions to my friend (I normally promote open, public discussions but I know he likes to be offline as much as possible).

Keep in mind the teaching council change the recommended upskill maths modules at a whim.

There's always a chance you could get into a school/course in one subject but winding up teaching another.

daymobrew

The teaching council need to assess the candidate's degree and may recommend additional courses to bridge any gaps - you will need to complete a subject declaration form.
You can get into a PME no problems but you be clear you will not be qualified to teach a subject until the TC have approved your subject declaration form.
Google search for "teaching council subject declaration form for maths".

This was mentioned in the Irish Times about 2 years ago: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/ask-brian-i-work-in-business-but-want-to-teach-how-do-i-join-the-profession-1.3306831

Irishder

Thanks for all the replies. So the teachers council came back to us stating the following:

"The requirements for entry onto the Register of Teachers are set out in the Teaching Council (Registration) Regulations 2016, with Route 2 dealing specifically with post-primary registration. You can find more information on qualification requirements under this sector here.


Please note the Teaching Council do not pre-assess qualifications prior to registration, the course provider themselves will set down entrance criteria for their Professional Masters of Education programme."

The second part of that is somewhat worrying. Are they saying that you need to complete the masters, on completion of that they will asses if you are qualified to teeach?

Thanks again for the help
Derek

Treppen

Irishder wrote: »

Thanks for all the replies. So the teachers council came back to us stating the following:

"The requirements for entry onto the Register of Teachers are set out in the Teaching Council (Registration) Regulations 2016, with Route 2 dealing specifically with post-primary registration. You can find more information on qualification requirements under this sector here.


Please note the Teaching Council do not pre-assess qualifications prior to registration, the course provider themselves will set down entrance criteria for their Professional Masters of Education programme."

The second part of that is somewhat worrying. Are they saying that you need to complete the masters, on completion of that they will asses if you are qualified to teeach?

Thanks again for the help
Derek

Sure "the course provider themselves will set down entrance criteria for their Professional Masters of Education programme." But that's not what you want to know, universities have no problem accepting anyone on their course once they pay the fees etc.
In fact universities will tell you to go away and find out yourself if you can be registered by the teaching council.
That doesnt really help you at all, there used be a list of all courses and what subject it qualified V you to teach. Is this still going?

Irishder

Treppen wrote: »

Sure "the course provider themselves will set down entrance criteria for their Professional Masters of Education programme." But that's not what you want to know, universities have no problem accepting anyone on their course once they pay the fees etc.
In fact universities will tell you to go away and find out yourself if you can be registered by the teaching council.
That doesnt really help you at all, there used be a list of all courses and what subject it qualified V you to teach. Is this still going?

That would be ideal if such a list was still available

Treppen

Irishder wrote: »

That would be ideal if such a list was still available

Is it gone?

jrmb

Treppen wrote: »

there used be a list of all courses and what subject it qualified V you to teach. Is this still going?

The list doesn't apply any more. Now you have to spell out the exact number of relevant ECTS credits you have, even if your course appeared on the list when it was in force. That's the process I'm currently going through, but in a different subject area.

Edit: The list is available online, but it's now meaningless.

Treppen

jrmb wrote: »

The list doesn't apply any more. Now you have to spell out the exact number of relevant ECTS credits you have, even if your course appeared on the list when it was in force. That's the process I'm currently going through, but in a different subject area.

Edit: The list is available online, but it's now meaningless.

I suppose modules in courses change all the time. But do 2 people who graduated the same year with the same degree have to apply seperately to have to have their degree assessed?

jrmb

Treppen wrote: »

I suppose modules in courses change all the time. But do 2 people who graduated the same year with the same degree have to apply seperately to have to have their degree assessed?

Yeah, everyone has to fill out their own subject declaration form (s). I had issues because you have to declare the credits under specific headings (5 for poetry, 10 for drama etc), whereas we had more comprehensive modules (e.g. "Culture" for 20). Frustratingly, the Teaching Council doesn't seem to clarify for sure whether you're qualified until after the PME.

Irishder

jrmb wrote: »

The list doesn't apply any more. Now you have to spell out the exact number of relevant ECTS credits you have, even if your course appeared on the list when it was in force. That's the process I'm currently going through, but in a different subject area.

Edit: The list is available online, but it's now meaningless.

do you have a link for this?