Should I consider going back to full time education?

markhunter

Im 30 years old, Im educated to GCSE standard (1xA, 2xB, 6xC grades) and have been self employed since I was 18.

A couple of years ago my sales business went under and I have ended up working as a private hire taxi driver. I have no trade qualifications or anything like that, all I know is sales. However as I now have 3 young children I feel its time to be looking to provide them with more stability than I can right now.

I currently work around 70 hours per week over 6 days and am making a profit (after paying for car, insurance, radio, fuel etc) of around £200-300pw although this can be considerably less during the quieter times of the year, especially if my car needs work doing and/or is off the road for any number of days.

I recently spoke with my cousin Simon, he and his family moved to Australia about 3 and a half years ago. Hes an electrician and has been earning around AU$90k pa whilst there. He works a lot less over there than he did here and enjoys a much better quality of life. He told me I should put my brains to good use and learn a trade (I chose electrician as Im a bit of a geek and dont really wanna work outdoors in the cold etc). He was confident that if I wished to emigrate, he could easily get me in where he works and I could earn similer money to him after 12-18 months experience.

The problems for me are that if I did the course part time, it would take me 3 years. If I go full time I can do it in 1.5 years but its 10am-5pm Monday-Friday so if I were to work on the cabs my income would be cut dramatically whilst my outgoings (with the exception of fuel) would stay the same.

Does anyone know of any financial help that may be available to us?

If we really tightened our purse strings, we probably could manage on my partners wage plus maybe I could make £100pw on the taxis although I fear we would be living dangerously close to the breadline. Borrowing money to help us get by is not an option as both of our credit ratings were very damaged by the business going under.

Sorry for the long post, any help and advice would be much appreciated.

(on a side note, my kids are 1, 2 and 4 so as Im sure u can imagine, they need a lot of maintenance).

Thanks

Edit: I wasnt sure if this was the right place to post this but as Im asking for advice on any benefit/help I may be entitled to should I go to college full time I thought I might as well stick it here

Oldernotwiser

As you already have a level 2 qualification, you wouldn't get any financial help to do a course at this level, I'm afraid.

You'd be much better taking longer to do the course part time and continue working. The evening class will consist of motivated adults, whereas the full time course will be mainly teenagers, with all the problems that can involve.

markhunter

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

As you already have a level 2 qualification, you wouldn't get any financial help to do a course at this level, I'm afraid.

You'd be much better taking longer to do the course part time and continue working. The evening class will consist of motivated adults, whereas the full time course will be mainly teenagers, with all the problems that can involve.

I was thinking that myself, however the pitfalls are:
1. the evening classes would mean that I would still work full time but ultimately for 3 years I would see even less of my kids than I do now.
2. full time means I see the kids pretty much as much as I do now but we have a lot less money.

Both kinda suck really

Oldernotwiser

Most level 2 electrical courses will be for 2 evenings a week; would that really make that much difference? Alternatively, your local college might offer the course one day a week which would mean cutting your earnings a bit, but would still leave your evenings free. Perhaps this would work as a compromise solution.

slummymummyof3

Your best bet is to contact your local college of FE and see what courses they offer, when they start (not all courses start in Sept) and what variations they do - e.g what are their part-time options etc.