Hope the ‘Teacher’ in you has taken notes on Scholarships!

Hope the ‘Teacher’ in you has taken notes on Scholarships!

There is a big buffet of available, friendly and tailor-made support options these days if you are someone who wants to make a career in teaching

ARE you an aspiring teacher? Does the magic of being in a classroom’s sanctuary and guiding saplings of tomorrow gives you those sparks?

If yes, do not let a small pothole like financial-difficulty get in the way of this beautiful and fulfilling journey.

We know it’s easier said than done when you wonder why this profession always takes a back seat of sorts in the overall picture, be it on the canvas of job growth or payment attractiveness.

What an irony that the industries which are usually responsible for the most job creation (like as analysed in a series of four years for Bureau of Labor Statistics data) tend to be also the industries that pay the least!

Teaching as a profession and education as an industry or professional vertical have always been eclipsed by the more drum-beating or glossy counterparts.

Source: Data indicating structural changes in the job market, part of book ‘An Illustrated Guide to Income in the US’ by Catherine Mulbrandon

Things and attitudes, both, are now changing though. To encourage more talent in this profession and to accelerate a true-teacher’s DNA in the right direction and without financial handicaps, a lot of programmes and kits have come up in the last few years. These programmes give a sum of money (yearly or on other models) for applicants who are completing or plan to complete course work needed to begin a career in teaching.

So many scholarships to choose from:

1. The first one to pop in most minds is the Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education (TEACH) Grant. You may notice that it stands distinct from other federal student grants in its requirement that the scholar takes certain kinds of classes in order to get the grant and also serves a certain kind of job as part of necessary agreement fulfilment.

2. The Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching Program, which is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and administered by the Institute of International Education (IIE), seeks to nurture mutual understanding among teachers, their schools and communities in the U.S. and abroad. It offers the likes of a three to six month program based at university-level schools of education wherein beneficiaries take courses, lead master classes and seminars, and at the same time – they visit local schools, collaborate with each work towards a project of their own design.

3. With the idea of accomplishing teacher continuity, Child Care WAGE$ offers education-based salary supplements to early educators. Its intent is to iron out any issues of under-education, poor compensation and high turnover within the early childhood workforce. It also rewards teacher education achieved and continuity of care provided. As per the annual report for 2013-14 of T.E.A.C.H Childhood WAGES,  the initiative covered 6,220 early educators and almost 41% participants were indicated with education below the Associate of Applied Science Degree in Early Childhood Education  while some 32 participants with education below the Associate of Applied Science Degree in Early Childhood Education. It also shares that 62% of WAGE$ participants were people of color and 99% were women.

4. The American Montessori Society offers an annual fund towards teacher education scholarships to aspiring Montessori teachers with an aim for supporting the growth of Montessori teachers of tomorrow. NSW Department of Education and Communities' 2015 Teacher Education Scholarship Program is another example which comes in picture if someone is completing HSC, studying a relevant course at university, or working in another field. It also becomes relevant for anyone who is mulling a career change and a teaching scholarship would be just the right spur. In such programs, one gets paid to study, secure employment and carve a satisfying career in teaching.

5. Others like American Federation of Teachers, DEC's Teacher Education Scholarship program, Robert G. Porter Scholars Program, Wisconsin Early Childhood and other such programmes are around to fill your specific needs and inclinations. Funds like the Wisconsin’s are efforts where one can work with young children, influence the future without many financial constraints. They not only make credit-based education more affordable, and shape better teacher compensations but also succeed in retaining teachers in early childhood settings by making this genre of work more rewarding.

6. Not only that, there is a wide range of options if someone wants to go for a specialized one like American Association of Physics (AAPT) or High-need fields like bilingual education and English language acquisition,  foreign language, mathematics, reading specialist, science, and special education, or any other field that has been identified as high-need by the federal government, a state government, or a local education agency.

7. Lately, there is a string of alternatives on the e-front too. For example, the Public Affairs Section at the U.S. Embassy puts out some impressive E-Teacher courses. Then there is the E-Teacher Scholarship Program for foreign English teaching for any of the nine innovative, online university-level classes through the University of Oregon.

These initiatives are serving a dual need – on one hand they weed out financial barriers for a good and deserving teaching professional and on the parallel, they help in bolstering the attractiveness of Teaching as a profession while also reducing turnover and addressing retention issues in this field. After all, as much as half a million U.S. teachers either move or leave the profession each year and this attrition is costing the United States up to $2.2 billion annually, as what a latest report from the Alliance for Excellent Education shows.

In fact, results From the 2012–13 Teacher Follow-up Survey by NCES (National Center for Education Statistics) depict that of the 3,377,900 public school teachers who were teaching during the 2011–12 school year, 84 percent remained at the same school (“stayers”), 8 percent moved to a different school (“movers”), and 8 percent left the profession (“leavers”) during the following year.

Among public school teachers with 1–3 years of experience, it was seen that some 7 percent left teaching in 2012–13 and about 8 percent of public school teachers who left teaching in 2012–13 were working in an occupation outside the field of education, including military service.

What’s more notable is that as much as 51 percent of public school teachers who left teaching in 2012–13 reported that the manageability of their work load was better in their current position than in teaching. Also, 53 percent of public school leavers reported that their general work conditions were better in their current position than in teaching.

This is enough of a cause for organizations and stakeholders to encourage people in this field and scholarships are one of the many ways to offer solutions at an incipient stage.

Courtesy: collegescholarships.org Blog

What you might need to be prepared for

Most scholarships would need an applicant to fulfill a mix of these or other obvious criteria-points.

Like:

1. TEACH Grant requires to sign an Agreement to serve in which one agrees to (among other requirements) teach in a high-need field, at an elementary school, secondary school, or educational service agency that serves students from low-income families for a specified number of complete academic years within a stipulated time window after completing (or ceasing enrollment in) the course of study for which the grant was received.

2. Scholarship bodies may want to have an indicator to reassure that the fund is being used in the proper direction to enhance educational qualifications, reduce the costs of turnover and accentuating teacher commitment

3. One will of course be required to meet certain fundamental eligibility criteria like being

enrolled as an undergraduate or graduate student at a school that participates in the given umbrella of the program.

4. One would have to suffice certain academic achievement requirements or credit-scoring lists.

5. Present a compelling financial need case which may entail a personal statement, letters of recommendation, and official verification of acceptance etc.

6, Remember that some scholarships (minority grants or women scholarships etc.) are meant for specific purposes.

7. One can always take advice, references and mentor-support from school's office authorities and networks, and compare local aids with national counterparts on all necessary factors.

8. In certain cases, like in case of the TEACH Grant, if the scholarship-recipient is not able to satisfy the agreement, funds received are either converted to a Direct Unsubsidized Loan or any other measure as per the circumstance can be taken. In case of a loan, it is to be repaid to the U.S. Department of Education, with interest charged from the date the TEACH Grant was disbursed

Keep these factors and options in mind, and step forth on the path to actualizing your potential as a teacher – a job as noble and often as much of a life-saver as that of a doctor.