Teachers have had to face and overcome new difficulties throughout 2024. Even in 2025, some of the same difficulties from last year are still present, but most have learned to adapt by now. Things are improving slowly, and it will take some time before education as a whole can recover completely. That is precisely what makes 2025 a great year for teachers to seek higher education or additional training. As to what options they have, we will take a quick look through the best of them.
Training for School Counselling
Counselling in schools has gained recent attention, ever since cases of violence in schools began to rise. The importance and role of the school counsellor is far more intricate than that of simply keeping an eye out for violent tendencies among students. School counsellors can help:
- New students from different backgrounds and origins to settle in and cope with the new school environment.
- Identify vulnerable individuals and counsel them accordingly.
- All students with readjusting to changes, as they return to the school premises after a long break.
- Parents and teachers understand unique difficulties of their children and students respectively.
- Identify and counsel children suffering from depression, anxiety, and stress.
Professional teachers are ideal candidates for a school counsellor’s job, due to their training and experience as an educator. All they need is the right degree course and training to expand their resume as a school counsellor. Aside from becoming a more capable teacher, it should also boost a teacher’s employability.
Online Teaching: Adapting with the Changing World
The majority of traditional teachers around the world found it difficult to adjust in 2020 when they had to shift to an online format. This problem had two primary roots, which were:
- Traditional teachers often knew nothing about how to use the online format for educating.
- The institutes themselves did not have a proper, online platform to facilitate online education.
However, the tremendous potential that digital education holds for those that are ready for it is undeniable. In the coming years, the reliance on online classes and digital technology will only increase. Join a course designed to educate traditional teachers regarding how to utilise the online teaching format efficiently.
Master’s Degree in Education
If you have not yet completed your master’s degree in education, start in 2021. As a teacher, you probably know that unless you complete your graduation as an educator, your career will always stay limited in this line of work. It is an essential course which all teachers are expected to complete at some point in their career. However, the sooner a teacher completes their M.Ed. the further they can go up in their career before retiring.
The online format was ideal for professionals to pursue higher education even before the pandemic, but now it is also the safest way to do so. The web format allows a lot of flexibility, letting teachers continue in their current job roles. Just make sure that you are pursuing your graduate degree from a properly accredited university. The Exeter University online Masters in Education UK program is ideal for professional teachers across the globe. If you are unfamiliar with the online teaching format and had trouble getting used to it last year, this will help. The innovative program is modified and updated dynamically to help educators become better at their jobs through dialogic and cooperative learning.
Advanced Degree in Your Subject
An advanced degree can refer to any degree that is more advanced than the candidate’s current highest qualification. For example, a high school chemistry teacher who already has a master’s degree in chemistry should consider getting a Ph.D. in their preferred field of research. For a secondary school maths teacher with a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics, a master’s degree course in their subject would be considered an advanced program. The working idea here is that if you teach a specific subject, then this is the right year to boost your credentials by pursuing higher qualifications in that specific subject. Becoming an expert in one’s teaching subject can lead to immediate/eventual pay boost and promotion. It will create more opportunities both within and outside the institute you are working in now.
Advanced Degree in a Different Subject
How much a teacher will get paid depends on multiple variables such as their location, the employing institute, their own qualifications and experience. In addition to those factors, what you teach will play the biggest role in determining your potential income and employability. If you wish to make a shift and teach something else, now might be a good time to consider it. Well-timed and intelligent lateral shifts could open a lot of new, more promising doors for teachers.
Education and Training for a Different Profession
Changing professions after a certain age is neither easy, nor recommended. However, if you are still young and have found interest in something else with greater promise than your teaching career, making a career change is still an option. For example, maths teachers could look at courses related to finance, accountancy, analytics, data science and the like. Someone proficient in the Liberal Arts could do well by learning about marketing, sales, Human resources (HR) and Public Relations (PR) among other corporate subjects.
For teachers with significant experience, shifting to a completely different field of work may not be ideal. Nevertheless, if an aged and experienced teacher needs to change their career, sticking to a related field is advisable. At times, the constant stress of teaching children can start to take a toll on an aging educator’s health. In such cases, the following professions are good alternatives.
- Librarianship
- Limited private tutoring
- Authoring in their teaching subject
- Adult literacy educator
Aside from the last option, all suggested lines of education in this post are intended to simultaneously boost a teacher’s potential salary, employability, and expertise. Choose carefully, and do so based on your particular circumstances, prior qualifications, previous experience, and overall career goals as an educator.
