Better late than never
You don’t have to be a Leaving Cert student to go back to school; there are many postgraduate courses for both primary and secondary school teaching writes Maria Moynihan.

For many people, it is impossible to decide on their future career at the age of 17 or 18. Some – after completing a degree and working for a few years – decide that they want to do something completely different. Fortunately the range of postgraduate courses on offer means that it is quite possible to return to education at a later stage and pursue a new route.

Student Profile
Danny Murphy, 26, from Abbeydorney, Co Kerry studied Business & Marketing at IT Tralee before deciding to return to education to become a primary teacher. He is studying to be a primary teacher with Hibernia College.

“I got no job satisfaction out of marketing and sales. Even though I was in a fairly good job and running the company on a day-to-day basis, I had this nagging feeling that I’d regret not going back to do primary teaching.

“I choose Hibernia because I could do it from home and it allowed me to work as well. I’m also getting the teaching experience now, whereas on the full-time courses you do the college bit first and then get the classroom experience. I think it’s very beneficial because you see the practical reasons why they tell you to do this or that. We’re doing sociology of education now, but unless you’re in the classroom environment it’s all gibberish.

“Because the course is online, most of the work is done on your own. I have a tutorial on the computer every Wednesday, but I have a lot of reading to do beforehand. At the moment I have to go up to Limerick every second Saturday and there are different lessons to look over before I have the lecture.

“A lot of people have said to me that they’re interested in going back to primary teaching, but it is a vocation. I suppose the main way to get a feel for it would be to ask your local school to go in for a day, even sit at the back of the classroom. You need to have patience because you can have 30 children asking questions at the same time. You need to have high energy levels and be up for some fun as well.

“Like any job, there’s no point in becoming a teacher unless you love the work. As a primary teacher, you’re really helping people. And just to come in every day and see people smiling up at you is lovely.”

Taken from an article by Maria Moynihan in the Irish Farmers Journal, 19/01/2008