Permission To Teach

When we decided to move to Melbourne we knew it would be difficult for mrwandymcnoble to get a job teaching here. The reason is that he qualified via the Graduate Teacher Programme (GPT) in England, which is not recognised as a valid teaching qualification in Australia.

The GTP is a work-based route into teaching, which means you spend your training year as an unqualified teacher working in a school on a reduced timetable, and learn on the job.

In order to work in any school in Victoria, even independent schools, you must be registered by the Victorian Institute of Teaching (information of registration here), but of course the VIT won't register those with a GTP qualification.

There is a loop-hole of sorts, called Permission To Teach (PTT). PTT allows an "unqualified" teacher with teaching experience to teach in a school for up to 3 years, however in order to gain PTT a school who is willing to hire you must apply with you. Schools must prove they can't find a registered teacher to fill the post before going through PTT, so as you can imagine a school would normally rather just hire a VIT registered teacher.

Last week mrwandymcnoble went to a job interview and the school does want to hire him to cover a 3 week sickness leave starting next week, which could turn into a maternity leave that starts in Term 3 (July). However, the PTT application takes 4-6 weeks to process so won't be ready in time for him to start the job next week. So frustrating! We are still waiting on the school to see what they decide, crossing our fingers that even though he probably can't do the sickness cover, they will still want him to do the maternity leave in Term 3. Cross your fingers for us please!

Anyway it is all a bit stressful, but at least we know that there are schools out there willing to go the PTT route. The most annoying bit is that in New South Wales unregistered teachers can teach in independent schools. So if we had decided to move to Sydney he would have had a much better chance of finding a job. But I suppose that is a very unhelpful way of thinking!


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