Mature students are swapping sides in the classroom, taking teaching posts in their 30s, 40s and 50s. Louise Holden reports.
There has been a steady rise in the number of mature students taking up positions as trainee teachers in Ireland. Almost a quarter of all entrants to the BEd and HDipEd programmes in St Patrick's, Drumcondra are aged over 30 and a small but growing group are coming to teaching in their 40s and 50s. After 20 or more years in the army, bank or driving a bus, students closer to retirement than school are returning to the classroom.
It's not a peculiarly Irish phenomenon - teacher shortages in many jurisdictions are prompting governments to recruit teachers from other professions. The average age of teacher trainees in the UK now is 30. Mature students in Britain are coming back to teach in subject areas where young trainees are scarce, such as maths. In fact, 48 per cent maths-specialist trainees in the UK are over the age of 30.
Back at home we have similar supply problems and recruiting teachers for maths, science and Irish is proving difficult. Today's Leaving Cert students are under-performing in these subjects and it's having a knock-on effect in teacher training colleges. Minister for Education Mary Hanafin recently floated the idea of raising the maths entry requirements for trainee teachers.
Martin Coen, a recent graduate of St Patrick's has returned to teach Irish and maths to primary school students after 30 years of working in various jobs from taxi driving to chocolate manufacturing. Now in his early 50s, Coen has taken up his first teaching position in a primary school in Dublin's Darndale.
"I went back to do my Leaving Cert in my early 40s, after failing to get a permanent position in the Cadbury's factory where I worked at the time," says Coen, who teaches eight-year-olds in Darndale Primary School. "I had often thought about returning to education, but with five children it had never been an option before. I completed the Leaving Cert in two years and did well. I applied for the BEd and BA in St Patrick's and got a place on the BA programme studying English, Irish and Human Development. While doing the degree I got some experience teaching TEFL and made up my mind to do the 18-month post-graduate programme for primary teaching."
Like many other mature teacher trainees, Coen believed that life in the classroom would be more rewarding than working elsewhere. Hugh Gash, director of St Patrick's, says that this is the prime motivator for the majority of mature teacher trainees. A significant proportion of the postgraduate programme for primary teaching at the college are now over 30, and about 10 per cent are over 45.
"We have bus drivers, women who have been working in the home, retail managers, business people - my hunch is that these are people who have always wanted to contribute to society but have never had the chance before now," says Gash. "People are prepared to leave highly paid jobs for a career that offers different rewards. The tangible benefits of teaching kids offers great satisfaction to many people." Just as teacher training is a good preparation for many careers (as the preponderance of teachers in politics would suggest), many careers feed into the teaching role. "Some of our mature students have come from the Army - their training helps in getting the attention of students," says Gash. "Those who have worked in managerial roles in business come to the job with well developed organisational skills which are very important in teaching." Classroom conditions are more extreme than they used to be - or so teachers would have us believe. Different socio-economic pressures, different languages, different approaches to discipline - all these stressors pose a challenge for the newly qualified teacher. Gash does not believe that this presents a greater challenge for the newly qualified teacher in his 40s or 50s than it does for the younger graduate.
"Workplace pressure has mounted in every professional area," says Gash. "Anyone coming from another job has experienced workplace stress." The training programme is intense, for students of all ages. Over 18 months post-graduate students must learn the rudiments of teaching a growing suite of primary school subjects as well as the corollary disciplines of educators - the psychology, history, philosophy and sociology of learning, classroom management, discipline, assessment and much more.
Most mature students, and parents, welcome the changes in Irish schooling, in Gash's estimation. "Schools are more challenging places than in the past but they are also more human," he says. "Now we favour engagement over punishment, and teachers work to relate to students." There is no fixed retirement age for Irish teachers, so an individual entering the profession at age 50 can work for as long as he or she feels able. That's a potential quarter century in the job if the individual is suited to the pressure of classroom performance and crowd control. After 20 years in the job, a teacher can retire on roughly a quarter of his or her salary, which at that point might be in the region of €55,000, depending on promotions, further training and other allowances. A quarter of €55,000 is not a princely sum for anyone with no other source of pension or income.
Not many teachers go into the profession for the money, but for someone starting a new profession for the first time in their 40s or 50s, teaching at least affords reasonable chances of getting a job and holding onto it. For a variety of reasons, older teachers are in demand - not least because their days of maternity leave and globetrotting may be over.
"The job prospects for older teachers are good," says Gash. "Older graduates bring a wealth of experience with them from their previous working and family lives. They have also done the whole 'experience and travel' thing. They're ready to teach."
