Students Slugged To Fill Teacher Shortage

Illawarra Mercury

Saturday September 10, 2005

By COURTNEY TRENWITH

AN Albion Park man who closed his successful joinery business earlier this year to retrain as an industrial arts teacher, has been slugged an extra $10,000 in course fees.

Andrew Ramos closed his business, which was earning up to $150,000 a year, to retrain to fill a critical shortage of teachers.

The father of three budgeted to pay $18,000 up front for his training but six weeks into the course, was shocked to discover the massive bill.

Mr Ramos is one of 15 Illawarra tradespeople who claim they were not told their fees would jump from $900 per subject to $1500.

The prospective teachers are studying an accelerated degree through the University of Newcastle, although they do some subjects at the University of Wollongong.

The students, who started the two-year course at the beginning of the year, claim they were told at two information sessions that it would cost about $900 per subject. But when they received their payment notice six weeks into the course, the students had been charged $1500 per subject through the University of Newcastle.

The UOW charges were $945 for each of the five subjects studied there. The $1500 fee is $900 more per subject than the highest charge for undergraduate students studying teaching at the University of Newcastle.

If the students had elected to retrain through Charles Sturt University via distance education, they could have been eligible for a full scholarship.

The students have sought help from the University of Newcastle student union and the NSW Teachers Federation.

A University of Newcastle spokesman said students were "clearly informed" of the costs at the information session.

But the students said the first they knew of the increase was when they received their bill.

"They (the University of Newcastle) knew fee increases were coming up but ... we weren't given that information," student Kylee Kerr, who lives in Wollongong, said.

Most of the students have been forced to defer their payments through Fee Help, which is similar to the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) but incurs 20 per cent interest on top of the loan. That increases the cost of each subject to $1800.

The mature-age students are not eligible for HECS. The students said they wouldn't have given up their careers if they had known the cost to become teachers.

"You'd be hard pressed to find anyone that would do a degree for $30,000," Mrs Kerr said.

Gary Nicholls forfeited most of his disability pension to retrain as a teacher.

Work Cover agreed to pay for the course, but Mr Nicholls said he may have to pay the additional cost, leaving him with a $10,000 debt, while he wasn't guaranteed a job due to his disability.

© 2005 Illawarra Mercury

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