Teaching technology in schools and in TAFE is a career path that trade qualified welders are well placed for, and one that most never consider.
Australia has a chronic shortage of qualified technology and vocational education and training teachers in schools. Principals are looking for teachers with the technical knowledge and industrial experience that a qualified welder already has.
What is it?
Specialist technology education degrees exist that recruit experienced tradespeople and prepare them to become registered school teachers. Tradespeople have historically faced barriers to entering higher education, and these courses are built around removing them: trade qualifications and industry experience can attract up to two years of advanced standing against a four year teaching degree, which halves the study commitment.
What’s involved?
These courses are designed for mature tradespeople, and commonly offer:
- Two years advanced standing in recognition of trade qualification & industry experience
- Choice of full or part-time studies
- Mid-year entry
- Weekend classes (so you can keep your day job while studying towards a career change)
- Blended learning (part online and part face-to-face)
- Scholarship opportunities
- A cohort of other tradespeople
What are the career opportunities?
Graduates of these courses are sought after by both TAFEs and secondary schools, and many are employed as teachers before they graduate, either in TAFE or under a permission to teach arrangement with the state teacher registration authority. Schools struggle to find teachers with real technical experience.
If you have reached that point in life where you may be considering a change of pace, ready to move on to a rich and rewarding career that benefits yourself as well as the community, then maybe teaching is just opportunity you have been waiting for.
Source material supplied by La Trobe University, first published on the AWI site in 2019. Product names are the supplier’s. Republished with the supplier marketing removed.