OnYellowBrickRd Posted October 1, 2012 Report Share Posted October 1, 2012 Hi there most valuable members of society I am a qualified High School teacher with 10 years experience teaching English (mostly FAL but also HL). We have been invited by SkillSelect to apply for a 189 PR visa and plan to put our house on the market as soon as we have the visa in hand. We will then move to Aus as soon as the house is sold (around the middle of 2013, if all goes well).We are planning to move to either Northern NSW or South Eastern Queensland (tired of hustle and bustle and would like to live in a quiet "dorpie" if possible ).Here are my questions:I have looked at the teaching sites in Aus as I will need to find employment as soon as possible. Honestly, I am overwhelmed !!! I thought there was a lot of paperwork required for our visa, but this is a lot more and all foreign. Do any of you have a "Guide to paperwork for Teachers moving to Aus"? If someone could just list the most essential documentation for me, then I can at least start looking at that.Do you have any tips for finding employment as a teacher?Is it possible to find employment as a teacher while still in South Africa? My nerves will really appreciate me having a job as soon as possible .Can any of you give me an idea of the differences teaching in RSA and Aus? What must I beware of? What is awesome and what is not so great?Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedules to read this post and for any advice you can give. Teachers are AMAZING 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joweni Posted October 1, 2012 Report Share Posted October 1, 2012 Hi YellowBrick RoadI am a teacher so I hope I can help you out with a bit of advice. As soon as you know which state you are going to live in- apply for registration with that state -you cannot teach in Australia until you have that piece of paper and each state is different. Once you have registration you can teach in all the public schools and the very best way to get teaching is to do relief work. it is well paid,you get a feel for the system and an idea of which schools would suit your skills set. Relief (or supply ) teaching can be challenging but it is a good way to suss things out while earning those all imprtant dollars. Many schools will not offer you a position until you have some sort of Aus. experience even the independent schools as there are lots of teachers in Asutralia!!!! If you live in one of the more rural areas it is somewhat easier to pick up contract work and with luck this may eventually lead to a permanent post. But the mmain thing is to get here,get teaching and show them what you can do!!.Please feel free to PM me if there are more specific questions I can help you with. All the very best with your plans. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rikamarie Posted October 1, 2012 Report Share Posted October 1, 2012 Good day, thanks for the advise, I am also a teacher, but I am an early childhood teacher. I've looked on the state websites and it looks as if that I don't register with a state because Early Childhood Teachers don't need to register? Right or wrong?! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joweni Posted October 2, 2012 Report Share Posted October 2, 2012 I spoke to a colleague who is the director of our pre-school unit attached to the primary school and her advice was to write to each state's education dept for clarification. She sat on the South Australian teacher;s registration board and says that it is her understanding that all teachers (including early years) have to be registered as this is where the mandatory police check occurs as well as ensuring that all qualifications are acceptable and applicants have done the mandatory reporting child abuse course which has to be completed prior to registration. The South australians and I presume the other states are very careful on who is allowed to work with children so it just doesn't seem feasible that you wouldn't have to obtain registration.Please let me know how you get on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mllh Posted October 17, 2012 Report Share Posted October 17, 2012 Hi. I appreciate the information given by all. I have a question: My wife has a 4 year Higher Diploma in Education, obtained from NKP in Pretoria (Normaal Kollege Pretoria) from Grade 4 onwards - Senior Phase. She has 10 years teaching experience and is currently teaching at a High School in Cape Town (Grade 8 + 9). Our agent told us her qualification isn't recognised in Aus as only Degrees are recognised to teach. Will she be able to do a teaching-related job in Aus? What would be required to enable her to teach Year 4 onwards? Does anybody have info on this?RegardsMarius Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bronwyn&Co Posted October 18, 2012 Report Share Posted October 18, 2012 Hi. I appreciate the information given by all. I have a question: My wife has a 4 year Higher Diploma in Education, obtained from NKP in Pretoria (Normaal Kollege Pretoria) from Grade 4 onwards - Senior Phase. She has 10 years teaching experience and is currently teaching at a High School in Cape Town (Grade 8 + 9). Our agent told us her qualification isn't recognised in Aus as only Degrees are recognised to teach. Will she be able to do a teaching-related job in Aus? What would be required to enable her to teach Year 4 onwards? Does anybody have info on this?RegardsMariusMarius you could try speaking to Eager2go on here. He had to do a year's post-grad study in order to meet the skills assessment (high school teaching) but get more details from him. Good luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HadEnoughofJuju Posted October 18, 2012 Report Share Posted October 18, 2012 Hey there. That truly sucks to have studied and worked for so long only to be told it's not recognised. I did a quick search on google for Recognition of Prior Learning in Australia and came across this link www.deewr.gov.au/earlychildhood/policy_agenda/earlychildhoodworkforce/pages/recognitionofpriorlearning.aspxIt may be worth your while to contact one of the assessing organisations on the list and asking them about the RPL. Good luck with the process. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aneldari Posted November 2, 2012 Report Share Posted November 2, 2012 (edited) Hi. I appreciate the information given by all. I have a question: My wife has a 4 year Higher Diploma in Education, obtained from NKP in Pretoria (Normaal Kollege Pretoria) from Grade 4 onwards - Senior Phase. She has 10 years teaching experience and is currently teaching at a High School in Cape Town (Grade 8 + 9).Our agent told us her qualification isn't recognised in Aus as only Degrees are recognised to teach. Will she be able to do a teaching-related job in Aus? What would be required to enable her to teach Year 4 onwards? Does anybody have info on this?RegardsMariusHi MariusThat is not the truth (except if they made majors changes since we came over) - from what I know when we did our skills assessment end of 2006, as long it is a 4 year qualification (teaching qualification or other degree plus 1 year teaching qualification), you'll be fine.My uni (PUKKE) for example only started doing teaching degrees instead of diplomas just over 10 years ago (when Potchefstroom Onderwys Kollege offically became part of the uni). I personally know some teachers that only have the 4 year diploma and they had absolutely no problem with the skills assessment or getting teaching positions in Aus.This is an extract from the AITSL (skills assessment) guide:"Assessment criteria All applicants, regardless of where they completed their training, will be assessed against these three criteria. Applicants for this assessment are required to meet all the assessment criteria to obtain a successful outcome. 1. Educational Completion of study assessed by AITSL as comparable to at least four years full-time higher education* level study (or part-time equivalent) in Australia, that results in a qualification/s comparable to the education level of an Australian bachelor degree or higher.2. Professional (i) completion of an initial teacher education qualification of at least one year full-time study (or part-time equivalent) at the higher education* level that includes a minimum of 45 working days of supervised teaching practice in an early childhood, primary or secondary school classroom setting. *Higher education is education offered by a university or other recognised higher education institution, leading to the award of a degree or higher level qualification."It says 'higher level qualification' which I interpret as higher than secondary schooling - as long it is the 4 and not 3 year diploma. There are so many teachers with only diplomas and it would be very unfair if none of them can immigrate because their institution did not have degrees but only diplomas when they attended.I would suggest that you email the AITSL yourself just to get official confirmation. It always feels better when you officially know.Here's their contact details:Assessment for MigrationPO Box 4774Kingston ACT 2604Phone: +61 2 6239 9505 Freecall: 1800 337 872 (9am-3pm AEST weekdays)Email: overseasquals@aitsl.edu.auGood luck - it's so worth it. A teacher's life in Aus is so much better than RSA!!I always tell people that in RSA, teachers were the lowest paid professionals, here it is totally different (not the highest paid but well-paid - above average). In RSA both my husband and I would've had to work full-time till after retirement age, in Aus my husband (also a teacher) have always worked full-time (poor hubby, he's such a darling) and over the 6 years in Aus, I have done lots of relief teaching, part-time/full-time contracts, long term/short term contracts... sometimes I didn't work at all... (we moved interstate a few times and each time it took a while to register to do relief teaching/contracts in both state and catholic schools).And with all that, our quality of life increased so very much...Loving Aus, loving life...CheersAneldari Edited November 3, 2012 by Aneldari Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LizM Posted November 7, 2012 Report Share Posted November 7, 2012 Even so, I think teacher's deserve to be paid more Aneldari. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aneldari Posted November 8, 2012 Report Share Posted November 8, 2012 Even so, I think teacher's deserve to be paid more Aneldari.Hi LizI agree with you 100%. Nobody would truly understand what a teacher goes through every day except other teachers.My husband works for a catholic school in QLD and there is currently a dispute going on about salaries. Hopefully the dispute will come out in the teachers' favour. The QLD government teachers won their dispute few weeks ago and they will get significant increases over the next couple of years. So fingers crossed...But still, in our case, our quality of life increased so, very much, it cannot really be compared to what we had in RSA.CheersAneldari Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nev Posted November 8, 2012 Report Share Posted November 8, 2012 On the funny side,During the recent teachers strike in Victoria where they were asking for more money, a teacher wife to one of the people in the office, had a long chat with a few of the other teachers about their investment properties..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aneldari Posted November 8, 2012 Report Share Posted November 8, 2012 On the funny side,During the recent teachers strike in Victoria where they were asking for more money, a teacher wife to one of the people in the office, had a long chat with a few of the other teachers about their investment properties.....I wish ... I do not know how they do it. I don't care much for investment property... I just wish for my own 'huisie by die see" but it's that deposit that's the first issue, eendag.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C&GJBay Posted December 13, 2012 Report Share Posted December 13, 2012 Hi all. I know this thread is a bit old now, but I hope you can help me. My sister has an early childhood qualification from intec .... I'm assuming that is not nearly enough to get a skills assessment? Do any of you know any way she could be assessed with that kind of qualification??Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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