The extension of the scheme for Scottish and Northern Irish teachers in England and Wales has now been finalised. Please see Note 7.

The RTL Scheme allows the government to repay, over time, the student loans of newly qualified teachers of specified shortage subjects in England and Wales. The scheme will initially operate as a pilot for teachers beginning in the academic years 2002/03, 2003/04 and 2004/05.

You will be eligible for the pilot, provided you meet all of the following criteria:

Teachers in schools

• a) Must be employed in a teaching post at a maintained school, a non-maintained special school, a City Technology College, a City College for the Technology of the Arts or a City Academy in England or Wales.
• b) Must begin employment in that post between 1 July 2002 and 30 June 2005.
• c) Must be employed to teach one or more of the specified shortage subjects, as outlined in note 4, for at least half of their teaching time in a normal week.
  In addition, primary school teachers will only be eligible if they are employed in their first post as a specialist in one or more of the specified shortage subjects – i.e. if they are responsible for teaching that subject(s) to classes or groups other than their own for at least half of their normal teaching time.
• d) Must be employed to work in the school on a permanent or a fixed-term contract for a minimum period of eight continuous weeks. This must be a contract of service only and can be either full-time or part-time.
  Supply teachers will be eligible if they have a permanent or fixed-term contract of at least eight continuous weeks and that contract is directly with the school or Local Education Authority; but teachers employed by teacher supply agencies will not be eligible.
• e) Must have obtained Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) on or after 1 February 2002. All routes to QTS will be included — i.e. PGCE, BEd and employment-based routes.
  Teachers in schools will become eligible for the scheme only when they have obtained QTS, so people in the Graduate Teaching or Registered Teaching Programmes will not be eligible while they are training.
  N.b. For the purposes of this scheme, you qualify as a teacher when you are awarded QTS. If you qualified outside of England and Wales you must begin an eligible teaching post within seven months of the date that you successfully completed your teacher-training course. However, you will not become eligible for the scheme until you are awarded your English/Welsh QTS, and you have begun an eligible teaching post.
  QTS is usually awarded once you have successfully completed your initial teacher training and a certificate has been issued by the General Teaching Council (GTC). You will have QTS before you start your induction year – you are not required to have completed your induction year before qualifying for this scheme. If you are unsure about the date you were awarded QTS please contact the GTC’s Teachers Qualifications Helpdesk on 0870 001 0308.
• f) Must go into a teaching post, as at a), no later than seven months after obtaining QTS — but see maternity concession at note 5.
• g) Must have an outstanding loan debt with Student Loans Company (SLC) as set out in note 10.

If you have any questions about eligibility, or you want any further information about the scheme, please telephone the Teaching Information Line on 0845 6000 991(or for Welsh Speakers on 0845 6000 992).

If you have read this factsheet and/or spoken to the Teaching Information Line and now want to apply for an application pack, please call the RTL Helpline at Student Loans Company on 0870 240 6298.

Notes:

1. If you meet these criteria it is likely that the full amount of your outstanding student loan(s) will be repaid — provided you remain in an eligible teaching post for the time that the scheme requires. This will be 10 years for teachers with Income Contingent Loans or up to five or seven years for those with Mortgage Style loans -see note 10. Part-time teachers will receive a pro-rata benefit over the same repayment periods.

2. Although you may be eligible for the scheme if you take up employment from 1 July 2002, the commencement date for the scheme, i.e. the date from which your loan will start to be repaid for you, will be 1 September 2002. After that date, the date from which your loan will start to be repaid will be the date you started eligible employment.

3. If you are an existing borrower you cannot join the scheme if you are in arrears with your loan repayments or your account has outstanding charges. However, you will be given time to bring your account up to date. If you do so, you can join the scheme and your write-off will be backdated to the date when you started your current teaching post. N.b. ‘in arrears’ is not the same as ‘in deferment’ –you can still join the scheme while in deferment.

4. The specified shortage subjects are:

• Construction
• Design and technology
• Engineering
• English (including drama)
• Information and communications technology
• Mathematics
• Modern languages
• Science
• Welsh

5. Where a teacher has had a child within the seven months of obtaining QTS (or an equivalent FE qualification or alternatively would have started to study for an FE teaching qualification), as referred to in paragraphs f) or m), the period during which she must take up eligible employment to qualify for the scheme will be extended by one year to 19 months. In the final year of the pilot, this could mean that teachers who qualified for this concession could take up post after 30 June 2005.

6. Assuming you have submitted a valid application, the potential benefit you receive from the scheme will be based on the outstanding balance of any student loans at the date you started eligible employment (or 1 September 2002 if you started employment before then and after 1 July 2002). This balance takes into account any repayments (voluntary or scheduled) that have been made against the loan(s) prior to that date. It may therefore not always be in your interests to make voluntary repayments and you should consider this carefully before doing so.

7. New teachers who took out Scottish or Northern Irish student loans will also be eligible for the scheme if they teach in England and Wales and meet the other criteria. We will be able to take applications for this extension of the scheme from 7 July 2003. Teachers who are accepted will have their applications backdated to when they became eligible.

8. Some teachers may have more than one eligible teaching post. You will only need to apply once to join the scheme but, given that the posts may be in different institutions, you will have to get separate verification for each post as part of the application process. The application pack will explain how to do this.

9. In Wales, teachers in the FE sector must have qualified as a teacher under the Further Education Teachers’ Qualifications (Wales) Regulations 2002 on or after 1 July 2002.

Types of loan covered by the scheme

Income Contingent Loans

Income Contingent (IC) Loans are available to students starting Higher Education courses in or after 1998. Repayment of IC Loans starts in the April after leaving their course once a borrower’s gross income reaches £10,000 pa. Repayment is made at the rate of 9% of marginal income over £10,000 pa. For example, a borrower with an income of £19,000 pa would repay 9% of £9,000 i.e. £810 pa or £67.50 per month. Repayments for the vast majority of borrowers with IC Loans are made through the tax system i.e. deductions by employers direct from a borrower’s salary for those who are within the PAYE system. For those within self-assessment, repayment is made directly to the Inland Revenue. Borrowers who are outside the UK tax system altogether make repayments directly to Student Loans Company. IC Loans include Hardship Loans and loans to part-time students.

Mortgage Style Loans (also known as fixed-term loans)

Mortgage Style Loans were available from 1990 until September 1998. Repayment of a Mortgage Style Loan starts in the April after leaving their course once the borrower’s income reaches 85% of national average earnings. The loans are paid back in monthly instalments over five years (or seven years for those with 5 or more loans). Graduates make repayments directly to Student Loans Company. There is no Inland Revenue or employer involvement in the repayment.