PGCE for Bursary

Hi all,

I’ve recently been looking at teaching and the funding available. As I am expecting to graduate with a first class MChem, I would be eligible for 24-26k bursary and also 9.7k SFE maintenance loan due to my parents income. This is astonishing and the prospect of 33-35k tax free is undeniably tempting. My thoughts are that much of this could be saved as a mortgage deposit, and that no other graduate role would ‘pay’ so much to provide this opportunity for a large saving in one year.

Is there something I am missing? Is there no contractual obligation to teach for x years thereafter?

Also, if anyone has any insight into people doing this please let me know. It feels unethical to potentially do a PGCE purely for financial gain.

I have plenty of teaching experience over my time at university, however I feel that in the long run teaching would not be for me. I am more interested incR&D, however as I say this seems like a great opportunity to accumulate a large amount of savings.

Sorry in advance for such a controversial question.

There is no obligation to stay in teaching after your training year. It is indeed a nice sum of money, and I imagine some people do just do it for the bursary. One person I trained with did choose not to pursue teaching after finishing her training, and still got to keep that full bursary amount - though I know she went into the year with the intention to become a teacher, she just realised towards the end that it wasn't for her.

There are a few downsides to doing the training purely for the money:

- You need to cover your own living expenses for the year, and won't have time for part-time work if you have been relying on that during uni. Some costs of living - like travel if you end up in a far away placement school - can add up more than they do as a regular uni student.

- If the teachers you are working with catch wind of your intentions, they will probably resent you. Mentors for PGCE students often aren't paid any extra money - and if they are, it's not much - but end up sacrificing a lot of time and energy, as do other teaching staff who help with trainees.

- I imagine it would be hard to get through the training year if you have no actual interest in teaching - even with people that go into it wanting to teach, many drop out because of the workload and other stressful aspects of training. I trained with a girl who was quite blatantly just doing it for the bursary, and she didn't last til Christmas - in part because her mentor seemed to realise what she was doing and so stopped supporting her as much, and in part because she just didn't enjoy teaching maths enough for it to feel worth it. In her case, she actually did want to be a teacher, just in another subject that didn't offer a bursary, and still she couldn't manage.

- The bursaries change yearly, and in the past have been done away with altogether for some subjects, so I wouldn't make long term plans based on it if you're still a few years away from leaving uni.

Hi all,

I’ve recently been looking at teaching and the funding available. As I am expecting to graduate with a first class MChem, I would be eligible for 24-26k bursary and also 9.7k SFE maintenance loan due to my parents income. This is astonishing and the prospect of 33-35k tax free is undeniably tempting. My thoughts are that much of this could be saved as a mortgage deposit, and that no other graduate role would ‘pay’ so much to provide this opportunity for a large saving in one year.

Is there something I am missing? Is there no contractual obligation to teach for x years thereafter?

Also, if anyone has any insight into people doing this please let me know. It feels unethical to potentially do a PGCE purely for financial gain.

I have plenty of teaching experience over my time at university, however I feel that in the long run teaching would not be for me. I am more interested incR&D, however as I say this seems like a great opportunity to accumulate a large amount of savings.

Sorry in advance for such a controversial question.