NI contributions when in fulltime education?

TheFlyingGerbil

Hi,

For the last couple of years I have had letters saying I have not worked enough for that year to be classed as a qualifying year toward my state pension and I can pay to top it up to a qualifying year if I wish. I ignored these (bad I know!) but now I was wondering how this affected me so got an online pension forecast which says I have four qualifying years (don't worry - I'm not approaching retirement age!) and said by the time I reach 65 I would have 44 years and qualify for 100% of my pension.

Now, my question is I know I have not worked for 4 full years so I was wondering where they came from - does the Government pay your contributions while you are in full time education (while in full time education I didn't work at all), or has it accounted the years where I didn't pay enough as these four years and when I actually get to retirement age and they work it out properly I will be in for a nasty shock.

If my qualifying years are from after education then if it is saying they are already qualifying years would I still need to pay the 'top up'?

As you can tell I don't know anything about how pensions work so any help would be appreciated.

Joe